


What it could be like

by Tirainy



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comic), Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Complicated sonadow, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-12 04:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 130,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7921339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tirainy/pseuds/Tirainy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sonic tries to use Chaos Control without a Chaos Emerald. Of course, something has to go wrong. He gets transported into another reality that is not that different from his own. However, he is not aware of this fact and neither are the people of this world...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to StripedStoryteller from over at FF.net for helping me with this chapter.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise.

"You know, Eggman, you really should think about yourself! You're doing a really bad job of trying to take over the world! Just look! It doesn't even hold together!" Sonic softly kicked the last robot, the small push being enough for it to crash to the ground and break apart with a loud ringing sound that echoed through the empty hangar like a beautiful melody of victory.

A confident smirk stretched across the hero's lips as he let his gaze linger at the destroyed robot by his feet. "But I guess it's understandable that you're demotivated. It's not like doing your best work ever brought a different result before!"

The blue hedgehog finally turned around to see Eggman's expression, expecting the usual outburst of anger followed by another declaration of how he would succeed next time.

However, the sight Sonic witnessed was not as he had expected it to be, it did not bring the expected feeling of victory. No. Instead it sent a shiver down his spine and made his gut fill with apprehension. Because Doctor Eggman was standing there with his head held high and a pleased smile on his face, calm as never before, his body language not betraying any signs of distress either; he simply seemed as if everything that happened in last five minutes didn't mean a thing to him.

Sensing something was _very_ wrong about the situation, Sonic made a small step back, his brows furrowing in an uneasy concentration.

And then the doctor started applauding, the sharp unexpected sound making the hero's body jerk reflexively. "Well done, Sonic! Once again you challenged my greatest creations and once again you came out victorious! I shall forever remember this moment! The moment of your last heroic act..."

The cobalt hero frowned at the declaration.  _ My last heroic act...? _

"You were a great opponent, the best opponent I could ever have! You showed me where I was making mistakes! You pushed me forward until I reached my limit—reached my true genius!"

_ Another great talk?  _ Sonic raised a suspicious brow. _ He has a those only before he carries out his plan... _

"But everything has to come to end some time..." The doctor made a dramatic pause, letting the silence linger before— "So let's end this in a _great_ way!"

All the lights in the air immediately dimmed at the exclamation, leaving Sonic and Dr. Eggman as the only two visible objects in the doctor's great lair while the rest became shrouded by darkness. The hero immediately shifted back into his battle stance, vigilant and prepared to face the secret weapon he was sure Eggman was about to reveal.

Green eyes jumped from one place to the other, searching for any kind of weapon that had not been there before. But there appeared to be none—not even a sound of any machinery being activated...

Emerald eyes turned to gaze back at the red ones hidden under the dark blue eye-glasses, the hero silently demanding some kind of explanation. However, the owner of those red eyes just stared back with an impassive expression on his own face, holding eye-contact for a whole minute before finally speaking up again.

"You see, I never was one for long talks..." the evil genius started, the short remark immediately making Sonic put on the 'Are you serious?' face.

_ Have you ever heard yourself...? _

"—You were a phenomenal warrior. You fought countless battles and as your presence here shows all of them—until now—were victorious. However, in this last battle you, hero of Mobius, Sonic the Hedgehog, shall _fall_..."

Dr. Eggman made an elaborate gesture with his hands that was accompanied by another moment of dramatic silence. The the doctor ever so slightly shifted his gaze to once again lock gazes with the hedgehog on the lower floor.

"Any last words, Sonic?"

The cobalt hero blinked.  _ What did he just—? _

"I take that as a ' _no_ '."

All lights switched back on, blinding Sonic in process. Feeling his eyes water and burn, the hero immediately closed his eyes, not being aware of what was happening around him until the sound of running machine reached his ears and he reflexively opened his eyes to see what was happening.

"What the—!"

Suddenly, Sonic found himself floating a few feet above the floor, a weightless feeling similar to when he fought Final Hazard in space spreading through his body. However, this time he was immobilized—while able to move both his arms and legs, he was unable to use them as there was nothing for his hands and feet to grip onto.

Blue ears twitched as the sound of machinery got significantly louder and  _ closer  _ as the pillars that surrounded him were slowly enclosing the space he was in...

Sonic could feel panic build up inside him as he watched electricity jump from pillar to pillar as if charging up to strike him... _Eggman doesn't plan to fry me alive, does he?!_

"What are you doing, Eggman?!"

A sickeningly pleased smirk appeared on the megalomaniac's face as he responded, "Exactly what it looks like, Sonic. You are about to receive few electrical shocks which will most likely result in heavy burns and a possible cardiac arrest..."

Green eyes widened in horror. Eggman was going to kill him?! But he had never tried that before—! Well, he did, but he definitely wasn't so serious about that—!

Deeply hoping the other had just a twisted sense of humor and that he was just trying to make him scared, Sonic forced out a nervous laugh. "Haha, doctor, a great joke! Really a _great_ one! Now stop joking and let me go!"

The doctor crossed his long arms over his chest. "I'm not joking, Sonic," he replied, nothing but cold-blooded seriousness visible in his expression.

"Oh, come on! You don't kill people! You just want to enslave them and robotize them and wipe out their memory—you know, just destroy their personality!" Sonic called, begging the Universe to make the mad doctor remember his humanity.

But judging by the scientist's next words, Universe, apparently, had better things to do. "Well, this will destroy your personality...along with your body—but that is just a trifle."

Sonic wanted to yell 'No!', but he never had the chance as at the same time one bolt got too close, burning his fur and making him instead shout out in pain.

_ Think, Sonic, think! What can I do?  _ the hero screamed internally as he tried to twist out of the way of the bolts but found it to be an impossible task while being suspended in the air by an invisible force.

"Farewell, Sonic the hedgehog!"

The exclamation barely registered in the hero's mind as he was currently more preoccupied with the fact that there were suddenly _more_ bolts rushing through the air around him, making burns appear along his form, each new one larger and more painful. He looked around, his eyes hurting from the flashing light as he watched the bolts start to jump randomly, making it harder for him in his weightless state to protect himself from further injury.

_ I have to get away somehow!  _ he shouted internally, wracking his mind for means of escape _.  _ _ Run!...Jump!...Teleport!...Teleport?...Chaos Control! _

With the pain of being electrocuted still coursing through his body, Sonic forced his eyes to close, concentrating on drawing all the chaos energy that coursed through his being into the center of his body to accumulate enough power to bring off the dangerous stunt he planned to do.

_Will I be able to make it?_ he wondered, feeling the potent energy leave the peripheries of his body and move towards the center of his stomach. _I don't have a Chaos Emerald on me, but Tails said it should be theoretically possible to execute Chaos Control just with the energy from my own body. Though he also said that there's a 50% chance it'll kill me..._ More burns formed on his body, legs, arms, and his back... _But that will surely happen here, if I stay—!_

He could feel the powerful energy being condensed in his being, twisting, stabbing, waiting to be released. It was a different feeling from using the energy of a Chaos Emerald which was simpler to control, not so unstable and unrefined...

_ I just need to  _ ** _focus_ ** _...  _ he said, already opening his mouth to let out the activation words. "Chaos..."

"What?!" Eggman jumped in alert, holding on a safety railing as he tried to take a closer look on what was the blue nuisance doing.

And then it clicked.

" _NO!_ "

"...Control!"

Sonic could feel how his body started to change its shape, preparing for teleportation—but at the same time he could feel all nerves in his body screaming in agony as one giant bolt went straight through his half-physical form. He opened his mouth to shout but his cry of pain was never heard as at that same moment he was sent flying right through the time-space continuum, his shout disappearing in the twisted fabric of reality.

Eggman roared in anger, his hands gripping so tightly on the safety railing it started to bend out of shape. Too swallowed in his anger, the scientist failed to notice was happening around him—even the alarming sound coming from the main computer that controlled the trap which Sonic had just escaped from. "That stupid hedgehog! Why can't he die for once?!"

The human would have probably continued in his fit of rage if it weren't for the anxiously sounding voice of his robotic assistant that suddenly sounded. "Sir!" The mad scientist sharply turned to the main computer, seeing Orbot frantically pushing various keys on the control panel. "The device is getting unstable! We have to—!"

But the rest of Orbot's sentence was never heard as it got swallowed by the sound of massive explosion that shook the whole lair to its foundations.

~O~

Sonic groaned, feeling as if somebody tried to burn him alive while running a bulldozer over him at the same time; he was heavily burned, his entire body was trembling from exhaustion and he was covered in dirt from the ungraceful landing.

Blue eye-lids slowly opened, revealing tired green eyes, which slowly scanned their surroundings. He seemed to be lying amongst a flower patch in the middle of a forest but he had no idea how he ended up here; he clearly remembered wishing to teleport to Tails's workshop.

Wanting to move himself on all four, Sonic tried to move his hands. However, his body felt too heavy to move, like lead, arms refusing to move from their position, unable to even attempt to hold his weight. He tried three more times but neither of them brought different result.

_ I guess I'll have to stay here...  _ He looked to the sky, where gray rain clouds were slowly changing to much darker shades. Thundering could be heard not long after.  _ Oh, come on... _

It didn't take even few seconds for a first raindrop to fall—right on his right ear, the appendage twitching when it felt the watery element's coldness. And the lone drop was soon followed by thousands of others, in moments soaking his body to the point it shivered from the cold as well as turning the ground around him into mud.

After few minutes the rain decided to turn into a storm, leaving Sonic in even more despairing state; in his adventurous life he already had to withstand a lot of bad weather, but before he always stayed in some sort of shelter until it calmed down, so being fully exposed to the elements without any way to escape was new to him.

_I'm in pain, freezing and unable to move...I hope Tails will wonder where I am and will try to find me._ Sonic could feel his eyelids slowly drooping, but forced himself to stay awake just in case somebody actually showed up and he could alert the person of his presence by shouting. Because if they don't find him fast, he will definitely die here—if not from his injuries then from the hypothermia he was in danger of acquiring if he stayed too long in the cold rain.

But who would come out in a such terrible weather?

Few minutes passed and, unsurprisingly, nobody showed up, the hero's hope of being found now practically non-existent _. _

_ Who am I trying fool? Nobody will come. I'm who knows where and there probably isn't nobody in this forest.  _ He closed his eyes, his breathing becoming shallow.  _ I'm exhausted... _

Suddenly, there was a loud splashing sound which grew louder with each passed moment. Sonic tried to open his eyes, but they became heavy, following his body's example, leaving only a tiny crack to see out of.

All he could see were two black legs with red stripes in white and red jet-skates just a few inches from his face. Then there was a white glove reaching to him. But he couldn't see what happened next as at that moment unconsciousness decided to swallow his mind.

~O~

Blue eye-lids slowly opened, the cobalt hero finally waking up from his deep slumber. Sonic blinked several times as he tried tried to adjust his sight to the darkness that surrounded him.

Wanting to figure out where he currently was, he curiously looked around from his lying position. He could see the silhouettes of objects that decorated the room—a small night table with a small antique clock sat next to his bed, a large wardrobe and long table on the same side. On the right side of the room was a small window, now covered by curtain. He guessed that outside was a night as there were only pale white rays of light piercing through the pale curtain, the moon-shine not reaching far into the room.

He turned his eyes to the left to see what was there. On the other side was a simple door and next to it a cabinet with some shelves hanging above it.

He honestly didn't recognize the room. Maybe some stranger found him? _But why haven't they taken me to the hospital then?_

Sonic closed his eyes, mulling over the situation. _I am in unfamiliar place with who knows who. Is it safe to stay here?_ He pushed himself to a half sitting position, his muscles protesting against the action. His body felt stiff, ached all over and his head felt dizzy. There was no way he could go out on his own in this state. _But what if the person is crazy?_

At that very moment, there was a flash of light outside the window and loud thundering ripped through the silent night. Sonic gulped heavily, the memories of his recent highly uncomfortable experience flooding his mind.  _ Well...until now they didn't do nothing to me so it's probably safe to stay... _

Closing his eyes, he lay back down, trying to recall what exactly happened before he fainted. He had been in a forest and it had been raining, he was sure of it. But then what? He tried to remember, feeling sleep slowly taking hold of his mind. He could feel the hazy memory approaching along with the need for sleep, but at the very moment he finally remembered that somebody came, his consciousness was taken from him, sleep claiming his tired mind yet again.

But just a moment before entering the dream realm, his ears slightly twitched as they registered the creaking sound of the door being opened. However, in his half-asleep state it sounded more like a dream than reality and so the hero let himself slip into a peaceful slumber, unaware of a dark figure that had just entered the room.

The figure paused at the door as to not to startle the hedgehog should he be awake. But Sonic was sleeping deeply and didn't look like he planned to wake up any time soon.

The stranger slowly walked to the bed and gave a fast glance to the bandages covering the blue hedgehog to check if they hadn't soaked through. Once he judged they hadn't and thus could wait until morning to be changed, the figure took Sonic's blanket and pulled it higher, so it would cover even the upper half of the hero so Sonic wouldn't get cold during the night.

The figure sighed and ran his hand over the big blue quills of the sleeping hedgehog gently. He bent down to whisper into the blue ear quietly but this intention was forgotten when the blue hedgehog unexpectedly rolled over, making the stranger's body reflexively lurch backwards as to be out of reach of the cobalt hero if he attacked.

But Sonic didn't so; he just muttered few incomprehensible words in his sleep and rolled once more. Then he became still again, the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest confirming he's still sleeping deeply.

Hesitant about what to do, the figure just stood there for a moment watching the sleeping hedgehog. But then the stranger shook his head and then, with a last glance to Sonic's sleeping form, left the room.

~O~

The next time Sonic awoke he felt terrible. He felt exhausted and weakened. His muscles ached, he could barely move, and he had trouble breathing. Not only that, but his entire body itched from the bandages covering his wounds—likely because of the wounds and the skin stretched around the scabs. Who ever saved him surely gave him something for the pain last night as he didn't feel this excruciating pain before.

_Okay, just don't think about how everything hurts you._ _Ouch! Bad move..._ He turned his head to the side to look around, pulling one of really unwilling muscle while doing so. It was easier to recognize things in the room now as the curtains weren't covering the window anymore which allowed the morning light from the outside to lit up the room.

Sonic furrowed his eye-ridges as he took in the sight of the sky. It was covered in dark gray rain clouds and it looked like it would start to rain in any moment. Wasn't it supposed to be sunny today? It seemed the weather man had been wrong again...

The hero attempted to roll to his side and after several tries he managed so—but at the cost of the blanket sliding partially off his body. This action, however, revealed the bandages covering his form and for the first time he could see how heavily he was bandaged. Sonic blinked surprisedly as he continued to gaze at his body. He remembered getting few scratches when fighting Eggman's robots but those weren't serious—which meant those bandages had to be for the burns.  _ Whoa, I look like a mummy... _

The hero looked to the door, frowning when he realized he wouldn't be able to even _reach_ it—even if he used all the strength left in his body. He would have to wait until somebody showed up...

Green eyes swept over the room again. It was...plain when he thought about it. The walls were painted with a brownish color, the floor was made of wood, covered with a red carpet, which he hadn't seen in the dark of the night, and all furniture was simple with minimal decoration. Well, he didn't know if it could be counter as a decoration, but the only thing that made the room interesting was the clock on the table next to him. It now showed 7:20 AM.

_ Well, I hope my host is an early bird... _

Blue ears perked up as they caught a very soft clicking sound coming from behind the door. It sounded like if somebody was walking there. But soon the steps stopped and the door knob started to shift.

Feeling torn about what to do, Sonic quickly tried to determine what course of action would be the best. Should he pretend to be asleep or face the unknown person?

Seeing the door slowly open, Sonic shut his eyes and forced his face to relax so he would seem like he was sleeping. He also tried to keep his ears from twitching as the stranger started to approach the bed, a strange clinking sound accompanying each of the person's steps. It sounded like metal clashing against the wood. Maybe the person had walking stick...? The blue hedgehog opened his eyes to the tiniest crack possible to see who it was, but all he could see was a dark silhouette placing something on the table.

He closed his eyes immediately as the person turned around. He could feel how the blanket was taken off from him and after a while as one of bandages was removed, then the second, then the third...

After all the bandages were gone, he could feel a cold wet cloth pressed close to the edge of one of the bigger burns. He had to grit his teeth to not yelp as the cloth continued to clean blood that had leaked from his wounds when he reopened them while he had rolled in his sleep.

Whoever it was, they worked quite quickly and their touches were soft and careful, obviously doing their best to keep the pain to minimum even though he theoretically wouldn't mind it if he really was asleep.

After a while he could feel bandages being applied again. Blue eyelids half-lifted themselves, showing off green eyes that had been hidden behind them. And this time their owner was able to see the mysterious person. It was...

...Shadow?

The memory of the forest encounter struck the blue hedgehog. The skates! It was him! How it come he didn't realize it sooner?  _ Well, you were busy complaining about all the pain...  _ a quiet voice in his mind retorted, but Sonic was too surprised by this new finding to notice it.

The hero opened his mouth, planning to say something along the lines of: 'Hey, Shads! Thanks for saving me! You know, I would probably die out there if it wasn't for you! I tried to chaos control without an Emerald because Egghead planned to grill me! Which reminds me, do you have something to eat? I'm starving!'

However, nothing came out.

He attempted two more times, but he wasn't able to even say the first syllable—actually, he wasn't able to produce even a sound. His eyes widened in surprise at this new finding.

It was at the same time as when the dark hedgehog finished his work. Shadow started to turn his head and Sonic shut his eyes again so it wouldn't end in a direct eye-contact. The hero frowned internally at his own behavior, for a moment confused by his own actions.

_ What am I doing? It's not like Shadow is an enemy... _

There was a noise as Shadow placed something on the table and then stretched silence, which made Sonic want to open his eyes to see what was happening.

Damn, his curiosity.

Just as he wanted to open his eyes, there was an unexpected touch behind his ear. Sonic would have blinked surprisedly at this action if he hadn't had his eyes closed.

That touch...it felt like...a caressing one...

It was about a half minute later Shadow withdrew his hand. And soon retreating footsteps could be heard and when the sound of closing door reached Sonic's ears just a moment later the cobalt hero judged the agent had left the room.

Sonic slowly opened his eyes, the emerald orbs turning to look at the closed door. He still could feel Shadow's touch behind his left ear, the pleasant feeling lingering there despite the confusion that now coursed through the cobalt hero.

What was that supposed to mean?

~O~

After a lengthy thinking session about the reasons behind the dark hedgehog's actions—which actually lasted only five minutes, but in Sonic's time it was like an hour—Sonic decided that they were nothing more than a tiny show of care. Which proved his theory that the Ultimate Life form had a heart, even if his rival would surely deny it.

Sonic continued to lay in the bed, considering his possibilities of what to do. It was only 7:48 AM and he wasn't tired so sleep definitely wasn't a choice. Finding out Shadow was the stranger that had saved him, had woken him up fully.

The hero was highly curious about how it came Shadow was the one who found him. He wanted to ask the other bunch of questions—like what was Shadow even doing in the forest in the first place. Though he'll probably have to leave that part for later—his vocal cords were in a really bad state now apparently...

He looked on the door, through which the dark hedgehog had left just moments ago.  _ Shoot, I should have thought about that before Shadow left. _

Green eyes slowly traveled back to the night table. Shadow had left a glass of water and some pain killers there, right next to the old-fashioned clock. To be honest, Sonic would really like to take those at the moment—as his body was right now taking revenge on him for what it needed to endure while traveling through space-time continuum without the protection that a Chaos Emerald always provided—it made some sort of protective field while teleporting from what he knew—and it would probably continue to do so for next few days at least.

He continued to gaze at the pain killers, which provocatively lay within his reach. It was like if they knew, that he was weak and couldn't get them even though they were at an arm-length from him...

_ If I continue to talk like this, I'll probably need different kind of pills... _

Sonic watched the medicine for a while and when it didn't magically jump to him—which he slightly hoped it would do—he decided he would try to sit up again. He bent his arms and pushed himself up, then he rested his weight on his right elbow and tried to crawl onto his pillow to get closer to the desired pills.

After a minute of struggling, he was finally lying with his upper body on the fluffy pillow, elbows pressed against the edge of the night table. His hands were trembling so much he had difficulties to even take a hold of the pain killers. But once he held them safely in his left hand, he reached for the glass of water and, with eye-ridges furrowed in deep concentration, he picked it up, struggling to hold it as it was much heavier than the pills.

He slowly attempted to bring the glass closer but with how weakened he was even this small move was enough to put too much strain on his still recovering muscles—they gave out and the glass slipped from his hold and shattered on the floor.

Blue ears immediately flattened themselves against Sonic's head at the volume of the sound. The hero watched as the water ran along the wooden floor, only to be sucked up by the carpet nearby, turning it a darker shade of red than it had been.

However, the triangular appendages perked up again when he heard a hurried stomping echoing throughout the house—and it took him only a split of second to realize the most probable source of a such noise.

But before he could have done anything, Shadow had already opened the door.


	2. Eggman is WHAT?!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to StripedStoryteller from over at FF. Net for helping me with this chapter.

The look Shadow was giving him was an odd one, one which started as a worried expression which changed to one of relief and finally...happiness? Could that be it? But Shadow was never happy to see him...

Curious, Sonic watched as the agent closed the door and then walked over to the bed, his dark body visibly less tense than when he'd arrived into the room.

Green eyes looked up to meet their red counterparts only to find the dark hedgehog had knelt down and was already on the same eye level with him.

Shadow gazed at him intently, not saying anything for a long while before three short words left his lips.

"You woke up."

It was a pointless sentence that really didn't need to be said. However, sentences like these were the simplest way how to start a conversation and so Sonic nodded in affirmation as, with not working vocal cords, he couldn't answer differently. His eyes never left Shadow's face, analyzing the agent's expression.

And just then Shadow's lips stretched into a tiny smile that surprised Sonic greatly as he had never seen Shadow smile before.

Astonished and perplexed, he stared at his rival whose gaze had fallen to his closed peach hand which still held the pain killers. Then the crimson eyes turned to the floor where the remains of the broken glass were still lying.

"I'll bring you another glass," Shadow announced as he stood up, carefully side-stepping the dangerous shards. He left the room and approximately thirty seconds later returned with a new glass of water and a cloth.

The cobalt hero watched as Shadow heaped up the shards and then as he promptly threw them all into the trash that stood next to the night table and then used the cloth to clean the spill, laying it next to the new glass of water once he was finished.

The untouched glass clearly caught Shadow's attention as he turned to his guest, raising a questioning brow at him.

In response, Sonic raised his trembling hand and hoped his host would see he needed help.

Apparently, the dark hedgehog understood the gesture as he picked the glass from the table, waiting for his blue counterpart to toss the pain killers into his mouth before offering the water to him.

Sonic took few sips and then nodded to signal to Shadow he could place it back onto the table. The ebony agent immediately did so and then sat down on the edge of the bed, a thoughtful expression on his face as he silently watched the cobalt hero as he struggled to lie down onto his back again.

Sonic mentally growled. He used all his strength to get into this position and now he couldn't get back down. _Great_. He could try to roll but with how frustrated he felt at the moment, he would surely tear the mattress with his spines. And he kind of suspected that Shadow wouldn't appreciate _that_ so he refrained from doing so.

However, then the dark hedgehog himself finally seemed to take a pity on the weakened hedgehog. He leaned forward and put his arms around the blue torso, Sonic immediately forcing his quills to relax when he felt the touch and realized the other wanted to help him. The agent held him up in an embrace and slowly helped him to move onto his back, mindful of his still healing injuries.

The blue hedgehog couldn't help but chuckle soundlessly at the strange moment. If anybody who didn't know them saw them like this, they would probably say they were hugging—while all their friends, would immediately say that Shadow was most likely trying to crush his bones for annoying him in one way or other again—but this time Shadow wasn't trying to do so.

It was kind of strange.

Blue ears perked up as they caught the sound of dark one's voice, who, for some unknown reason, still hadn't removed his arms from around him. "You made me really worried, you know?"

The statement and the sincere tone in which it was said caught Sonic by surprise. Never before had Shadow something said like this to him—actually the agent had never voiced even the _slightest_ bit of concern about him.

Shadow let out a tired sigh, tightening his hold on the other hedgehog. "Why do you have to be so foolish all the time?"

_ Part of my nature,  _ Sonic replied mentally on instinct. The embrace, in which he was being held, felt somehow desperate—as an embrace of a person that lost something dear to them and now when they got it back, refused to ever go off it again.

Only Tails ever gave him a such embrace.

It immediately made him sorry for making the other hedgehog worry even though he still had no idea what to think about Shadow's actions. He couldn't remember any moment that the dark hedgehog would show even the tiniest amount of worry about his well-being. So this sudden show of concern caught him out of a guard entirely.

It was _so_ **strange.**

Because, why would your rival whom acts as if he hates you most of the time, show the same amount of concern over your well-being as your best friend, the person that is the closest to you?

Just why?

The question echoed through his mind endlessly, pushing any irrelevant thoughts aside as it tried to find its answer. But even this thought was forgotten when the dark hedgehog let go of him, the action breaking his trance like state.

Shadow straightened his back to sit normally again, crimson eyes sparkling with unknown emotion when he looked at him.

With a smirk on his tan lips, Shadow shook his head, chuckling quietly. "Dammit. You always make me act like this."

The statement was said half-seriously and half-jokingly, the occurrence strange for the usually absolutely serious hedgehog—but that still wasn't what caught Sonic's attention—it were the _words_ the other used.

_ Always...? _

The cobalt hedgehog didn't recall any time he might have caused Shadow to become emotional—nothing beside than the countless instances of making Shadow annoyed or rage came to his mind. Maybe had Shadow meant it differently? But how then? The hero mulled the agent's word over in his head but before he could come to some kind of reasonable conclusions what they could signify his attention was already drawn elsewhere.

"Aren't you hungry? I could prepare something for you."

The blue hedgehog sat up so fast that nobody would believe that he really was injured. Well, except his muscles, which immediately repaid him by sending pain signals into all of his body. But he ignored them as he was more interested in the food topic than in his body not approving his behavior.

(Yeah, it wasn't hard to distract him from thinking.)

Shadow snorted in amusement at the obvious gesture of agreement. "Alright, then. Do you want to eat here or in the kitchen?"

~O~

After rather awkward situation—or that's at least how it'd seemed to Sonic—when Shadow had to carry Sonic bridal style to the kitchen, because his legs simply _refused_ to listen to him today, was the blue hedgehog seated with some hot tea at the kitchen table waiting for his meal to be prepared.

His bare peach fingers tapped quietly on the table as he watched Shadow move around the kitchen. The room was nice and simple, like rest of rooms he had seen so far in this house. There was rarely any decoration but it surely fitted Shadow's personality.

He actually had already been here once before, but somehow he couldn't get rid of the feeling that something was now different about the room...

"Could you stop tapping? It's getting on my nerves."

Sonic's fingers froze in the middle of the motion, green eyes staring at the ebony hedgehog in bewilderment.  _How on Mobius does he know I am tapping?_ _ He stands with his back towards me! And there's now way he would be able to hear it! _

The blue hedgehog gave the other one a suspicious look, but didn't say anything and stopped tapping. Instead he curled his hands around the warm cup of tea before him, holding it with both of his hands as he brought it up to his lips to take a sip from it. The warm tea went down his throat with ease, spreading pleasant warmth in his insides once it reached his stomach.

He placed the cup back onto the table and then stretched his body as much as his tired muscles would allow him, his eyes looking over the bandages that covered his form. There was a lot of them on his chest and even more on his belly. He let his gaze travel even lower to his feet, which he surprisingly found shoe-less.  _ Without gloves, socks and even shoes. I'm practically naked here...Naked in Shadow's kitchen—? Wrong thought, Sonic, wrong thought! _

Completely oblivious to the mental fight of the blue hedgehog behind him, the ebony hedgehog continued with finishing the hero's meal. Once he was finished he turned around to serve it and was met with the sight of Sonic pressing his palms against the sides of his head.

"...What exactly are you doing?" Shadow raised an eye-ridge, the gesture alone clearly saying he had no idea what thinks of this strange behavior.

"I'm trying to get a certain image out of my head..." Sonic answered, refusing to open his eyes as looking at Shadow right now would surely burn the image into his mind's eye.

However, if he had opened his eyes he would notice a surprised expression crossing Shadow's face—which was caused by hearing the blue hedgehog actually speak up even though it was only in a very silent and hoarse voice.

Soon there was a clicking sound as the plate was placed on the table. However, Sonic ignored this, still trying to get image out of his head.

And suddenly there were hands placed on his shoulders and certain male voice saying, "Boo!"

Not expecting this, Sonic's entire body jerked and he snapped his eyes open, his previous problem disappearing into non-existence. He sharply turned around, looking at Shadow with wide eyes, while his body once more protested about being abruptly moved. "What the heck—?!" Sonic tried to get his heart-rate back under control. "What was that supposed to be?!"

"Getting rid of the image," the dark hedgehog replied simply with an amused smirk on his face, lightly shrugging his shoulders. Then he tapped on the table next to the plate to draw the hero's attention there. "Eat before it gets cold."

Green eyes turned their attention from Shadow to the plate before him. There were three chili-dogs, all of them covered in the just right amount of chili with grated cheese decorating them, Sonic feeling his mouth water at the mere sight.

Slowly he took one and bit into it to test it.

Green eyes widened in surprise when the hero's tongue got assaulted by its perfect combination of spices, the delicious flavor making him crave for more. With a big smile forming on his lips, he eagerly took another bite and then another and another...

The blue hedgehog finished his meal in matter of two minutes—though normally he'd probably manage the same amount in _seconds_ —full feeling filling his previously empty stomach. Running the back of hand across his mouth to remove any possible food remains that might have gotten stuck there, he looked to Shadow, who had his back rested against the door frame and was staring at some spot on the ceiling, probably deeply thinking about something judging by his furrowed brows.

"Hey, Shads..."

Black ears perked up at the sound of their owner's name and ruby eyes left the spot on the ceiling to look at him. "Hmm?"

"Would you mind giving me a helping hand, well, _arms_ —" He chuckled. " _—_ in this case, to get me home? I know how muck you hate when people bother you."

For some mysterious reason Shadow frowned at this remark. "...You don't bother me and the fox kid won't be at your house for next few days. There wouldn't be anybody to help you."

The blue hedgehog raised a surprised eye-ridge. This was news to him. "Huh? Where is he then?"

"He's at GUN Headquarters. Somebody hacked the computers and the IT department asked him for help."

Sonic blinked, wondering if he had heard correctly. Both to him and to Tails working with GUN seemed almost as evil as working with Eggman—their methods were way too often disturbingly similar. "With GUN?"

"President himself asked him to do so," Shadow responded, looking as if it were absolutely ordinary occurrence.

"Well, I guess national threat is always a _big_ problem..." Sonic drooped his gaze onto the floor for a moment before raising it to meet the one of the ebony hedgehog again. "But I really would like to see him..."

They held a staring contest for a minute, before Shadow gave in and let out a heavy sigh. "I'll call him."

The ebony hedgehog left the room, leaving alone the blue hero who then tried to follow Shadow with his eyes. But with most of his vision blocked by a wall and legs that didn't allow him from his place on the chair, he could only listen to what was the ebony agent doing, the sharp tapping sound of keys being hit to dial a number reaching his ears and a moment later it was followed by Shadow's deep voice, saying, "Hey, Rouge. Shadow here. I have a message for Tails—"

~O~

"Rouge said she'll give the message to the fox kid once he shows up. He's in a top secret part of the HQ so she cannot give it to him immediately."

Sonic raised an amused brow. "It cannot be that top secret when you know about it..."

"Nothing ever is when you have a spy as a teammate," Shadow replied while unfastening his GUN communicator from his wrist, the device giving a loud beeping noise when it came undone.

A strong male voice sounded from it just a moment later,  _ "Agent Shadow! I demand you to return to the HQ right now or else—" _

However, the rest of the threat was left unheard as Shadow smashed the communicator into a wall, the remains of the device falling to the ground in a pile of unrecognizable pieces. Sonic stared wide-eyed at Shadow, whose hand was still tightly clenched in a fist and pressed against the newly-made hole in the wall.

"Damn. They always have to use this fuse," Shadow muttered, Sonic having a feeling the remark wasn't really meant to him so he didn't react to it anyhow. He just waited until the agent turned to him, the anger vanishing from the ebony one's features in that instance and instead being replaced by an emotionless expression. "If anybody calls or rings the doorbell pretend nobody's here. The Commander has been trying to catch me for last two weeks."

"Uh...Okay...?" Sonic answered, unsure if he should inquire about the topic of the Commander apparently chasing him or not. But then the memory of Shadow crushing the communicator flashed through his head and the hero decided it would probably be better if he left it alone. "So, um...What are we going to do now?"

Shadow crossed his arms over his chest, resting his back against the door frame again. "Depends. What would you like to do?"

~O~

Sonic gazed at the flickering screen before him with a mild interest, not much interested in what was taking place on the screen and more about the fact why Shadow even had this kind of television—a newest generation of LED television that was at least five feet wide. The hero always thought him more of a book person and the fact that the dark hedgehog didn't look like he cared about what was on and was currently reading a book hadn't even tried to convince him otherwise.

But that wasn't what was troubling him the most.

There was also that fact that he was laying comfortably on a couch and watching a TV— _ in Shadow's house— _ and Shadow was sitting just few feet from him, reading a book, not scolding him, not screaming at him, not trying to get him out of his house...

Something definitely wasn't right here.

The hero frowned, recalling the memory of what the dark hedgehog had told him the last time he'd tried to visit his house...

_ "I swear, if I ever saw you again around my house, I'll shoot your sorry ass!" _

He _still_ had memories of the bruising on his back from when Shadow then literally kicked him out of his house that time. After all, it was barely two months ago since it happened.

However, the fact that he wasn't kicked out of the house could be explained very simply at the same—by Shadow's sudden change of behavior. Which, however, brought another question: Why was Shadow suddenly acting all nice for no apparent reason?

So far all their meetings that didn't involve saving the world, somehow, always ended in a fight between them—which then ended in many broken bones or at least bunch of bruises to each of them. And so far the fights never took more than five minutes to occur.

But he had been laying here for ten minutes, being awake for an hour already and there was not even a verbal fight taking place between them.

Determined to find the cause of this strange behavior, the cobalt hero sat up and slowly moved his eyes towards the armchair.

However, once the emerald orbs reached their target, they weren't met with the sight of dark hedgehog reading a book. Instead they were met with an empty armchair, its owner nowhere in sight.

Sonic frowned, not even recalling Shadow leaving. He looked around the living room, thinking Shadow might have moved to sit elsewhere but not finding him anywhere. Well, until a blanket suddenly fell into his lap and he turned around to see that Shadow was now standing behind the couch.

The ebony agent drew his outstretched arms back to his sides, smirking in amusement at his confused expression. "You looked as if you were about to asleep again so I thought you might appreciate some comfort while doing so."

"...Thanks," Sonic said, taken aback by this kind gesture. Something was definitely wrong with Shadow. Treating his wounds was one thing, but doing nice things for **_him_** was so un-Shadow...

"You're welcome," the agent responded, turning to walk back to his book, but Sonic's next words stopped him in his tracks.

"...Why are you acting like this?" Sonic asked, now turning to face the other fully, blue eye-ridges furrowed in thought.

The ebony hedgehog raised a questioning brow at the other hedgehog. "What do you mean?"

"Acting nice! You are Shadow the hedgehog, remember?" Sonic threw his arms into the air dramatically to emphasize his point. "You're grumpy, unfriendly and anti-social. Last time I checked you hated me!" For some reason this particular remark made a scowl stretch across Shadow's face, but Sonic didn't pause to ask about it and instead continued in letting his confusion known to the world, "So why haven't you kicked me out of the house yet?! Why are you taking care of me when you could have throw that work at some doctors in a hospital? Why—?"

The rest of Sonic's words was left unheard as at that moment a dark hand was placed over his mouth, effectively silencing him. Its owner was looking at him with anger shining in his crimson eyes, the agent's voice having a growling undertone when he spoke.

"Did you hit your head or what? I don't hate you! How in the name of Chaos did you even come to that conclusion?" Shadow asked, scowling deeply as if the very thought offended him. "I haven't kicked you out because you're hurt—I cannot let you walk around in such state." Shadow growled angrily, making a small pause before continuing. "And that thing with a hospital..." Crimson eyes met his, fierce and hard. "I have no idea where have you been for past three months, but obviously somewhere under a rock, when you don't know about the situation you're in."

Sonic blinked confusedly at this strange statement.  _ Situation I am in...? _

Shadow lowered his hand but continued to hold the intense eye contact with him, ruby eyes hard and full of...hurt? "But if it will make you feel better, I'm going to be anti-social for next two hours, what do you say?"

However, the ebony hedgehog didn't wait for an answer to his question—he disappeared behind the door in a blink of eye, the wooden door closing with a loud slam as it was roughly shut.

And Sonic was left alone and even more confused than before, Shadow's short speech filling his mind with more questions than answers.

~O~

Sonic gazed at the closed door once again, hoping the dark hedgehog would come through this time. But that didn't happen. It was a hour and a half since he last saw Shadow and Sonic had been thinking about their talk all this time and right now he was feeling really sorry for being...ungrateful? Suspicious? A nuisance?

He  ** _really_ ** would like to go apologize to Shadow, but his legs wouldn't let him...

Accepting the reality that he would have to wait, the cobalt hero sighed, wrapping himself up in the blanket that Shadow had brought him. He forced his eyes to look back at the TV, hoping it would help him pass the time until Shadow came back. But with the warm comfortable blanket around him and his full stomach making him sleepy he soon found his eyelids drooping and in matter of minutes he was soundlessly sleeping and unaware of his surroundings.

~O~

When Shadow finally came back—exactly two hours after his departure—Sonic was still quietly dozing off at the couch. The ebony agent stared at the sleeping hedgehog for a moment longer and the he forced his legs to move and carry him to the couch, where he then knelt down to be able to look at the face of the sleeping hero. He placed his hand on Sonic's left cheek, caressing it softly with his thumb.

"What on Mobius has gotten into you...?" he asked, frowning. But before he could get an answer—or at least ponder about it—the door swung open, revealing his female colleague.

"Hey, hon, I brought the—! Wait... Is that So—?"

Shadow was on his feet in a blink of an eye and in another one right before her. "Dammit, Rouge!" He harshly pushed her from the opened door into the corridor, shutting the door behind himself as he followed after her.

Sonic's eyes snapped open at the commotion, his ears swiveling in various directions until they registered two familiar voice coming from behind the door—the two now screaming at each other in some heated argument whose topic he couldn't fully make out.

_ "Was...Sonic?! Are...aware...?!" _

_ "I...you! The...meeting...imposter!" _

_ "What? How...sure-?!" _

_ "Chaos...! Nobody…!" _

_ "You...! Let...decide!" _

_ "Go on!" _

As the door started to open again, Sonic was suddenly filled with the unexplainable urge to pretend being asleep like he'd done this morning. But then his pride kicked him and decided he had to face the new threat in the form of the white bat, who just stepped into the room with an analyzing look on her face.

Blinking rapidly to get rid of the remains of his sleepiness, Sonic pushed himself up into a sitting position, the action making his blanket slip down from his shoulders down to his waist—and thus revealing his bandages.

He watched as Rouge halted to examine his wounded body, and then in even slower pace she walked to him, looking as if she expected him to attack her any second.

Shadow, who was now standing at the door, smirked in mild amusement at his colleague's cautiousness. "You think he has those bandages for decoration? He's absolutely harmless."

Sonic shot the ebony agent a look for calling him 'harmless'—yeah, technically speaking he was right, but still...

The hero's expression changed into a neutral one when redirected his gaze back to Rouge, who was now sitting down onto the armchair Shadow previously occupied.

"Prepared for few questions?" she asked, leaning back in her seat and crossing her legs over one another.

"...I guess?" Sonic tried, unsure what to expect of the bat. What could Rouge possibly want from him?

"Do you know what has been happening for last three months?" the female agent asked with the utmost seriousness, the tone _just urging_ Sonic to joke.

"Well, yeah, it was unusually rainy—"

"Alright, differently..." Rouge paused to take a deep breath. "Are you aware that some imposter have been dirtying your name?"

Sonic blinked, confusion clearly written all over his face. He shook his head slowly.

"How come? Where have you been all this time?"

The blue hedgehog shrugged his shoulders. He was mostly at home for last three months. He would notice some imposter running around, right?

Shadow stepped into their conversation, curious expression now inching its way onto his face. "How exactly did you end up in that forest?"

"Well, Eggman caught me into some sort of electrical trap—and because he planned to fry me alive I had to use Chaos Control to get out of there. I wished to teleport into Tails' workshop but for some weird reason I instead got transported into that field where you found me."

The GUN duo exchanged glances and then Rouge coughed nervously, saying something that threw Sonic for a loop.

"Are you aware that Doctor died a year ago?"

Sonic stared at them dumbfounded and for a moment a stretched silence filled the room as both agents waited until the hero finally found his voice again.

"Hold on for a sec. Eggman is...dead?" Sonic asked, unsure if he'd heard correctly. Rouge nodded in affirmation before raising a questioning brow. "You really don't remember that?"

The blue hedgehog shook his head, utterly perplexed and confused. "But how? Just yesterday I saw him—"

"A month," Shadow cut in, both pairs of greenish eyes turning to him in confusion at the remark. "You were out for a month," the dark hedgehog clarified.

Emerald eyes widened in shock. "A month?!" _I've been out for a month?!_

Shadow just nodded, not saying more. Sonic furrowed his brows, unable to understand how could this be possible. "But it surely was Eggman..."

"Maybe Dr. Eggman faked his death?" Rouge suggested, but the idea immediately received a shook of head from her ebony co-worker. "GUN tested it. What we found was surely Doctor's corpse."

"It could be a clone," the bat replied, this time receiving a thoughtful look from her colleague instead of immediate shake of head.

"I guess that would explain it..."

Sonic switched his gaze from one agent to the other, feeling left out from the conversation. But his ears perked up as Rouge spoke again, this time towards him. "But you were with us when we discovered the corpse..."

The blue hedgehog blinked in confusion, not recalling such memory—and he was pretty sure he would remember event like that. "I was?"

"Yes," both agents agreed, both wearing an emotionless mask and clearly finding it suspicious that he didn't remember this event...

"Hey, stop giving me that look! I know what you're thinking! It's me! Just take a blood sample or something! That will prove it!"

However, neither of the agents took up the offer. Instead Rouge turned her gaze back to her colleague, a pleased expression now forming on her face. "I don't think that will be necessary."

Shadow shot his colleague an annoyed look, crossing his arms in clear sign of disagreement. Sonic watched the exchange with uncertainty. Had he missed something?

"Please, excuse us for a minute," Rouge said, at the same time sending a too sweet smile his way, and then she dragged her ebony colleague back into the corridor, shutting the door once they were there.

And, suddenly, Sonic had a sinking feeling in his stomach, unable to fight away the thought, that, yes, he should have pretended being asleep...


	3. Is he or isn't he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to StripedStoryteller from over at FF.net for helping me with this chapter.

As the door clicked shut, Rouge turned to Shadow. The sweet smile that she had previously now gone and instead replaced with an expression of pure seriousness, which could be seen shining even in her teal eyes when they met the crimson ones of Shadow. Her tone following suit as well when she spoke up, "It's not Sonic."

Shadow's previously annoyed expression twisted into a frown, a clear sign he didn't agree with her opinion. "Bat, we've talked about this. His chaos wave length—"

The female agent gave a sigh before interrupting her dark teammate. "Hon, I don't understand these 'chaos energy matters' like you do—but are you sure you haven't mistaken it?"

The ebony agent shook his head. "No, chaos wave length cannot be mistaken. It's like fingerprints, it's _unique_. The person right next door is indisputably Sonic."

"Or maybe _they_ finally found a way how to trick even your chaos sensing abilities into thinking the person sitting on your couch is the true Sonic," she argued, a frown now forming on her lips. "There's no doubt the true Sonic is somewhere out there. But I doubt it's _him_. Just think about it. Sonic appearing right now, out of all times, and with a memory loss above that—That's way too much coincidences at once, don't you think?"

"I understand your suspicion, Rouge, but I can assure you it's _impossible t_ o fake chaos wave length," Shadow responded, crimson eyes turning towards the closed door. "This is the true Sonic."

"Sorry, hon, but I don't think your word will be enough for me this time. I need _hard_ _evidence_ ," Rouge replied, emphasizing the last part as much as possible. Even though she would like to trust her friend's word, she still needed some kind of proof that Shadow's claim weren't just empty words. After all, GUN already had evidence that spoke otherwise...

Shadow turned his blood-red gaze back to her. "Then ask him—ask him questions only true Sonic knows the answers to. That will be enough of proof, won't it?" he asked as he gestured to the living room door, his crimson eyes hard and unrelenting.

Rouge blinked in surprise at her colleague's displayed determination to prove his truth as she had never seen him look so adamant about anything. This unyielding attitude piqued her curiosity and so she nodded, saying, "I suppose," wanting to find out if Shadow was right.

As well as _why_ he was so determined to prove he was right.

~O~

Few minutes later, all three of them were seated in the living room again. However, only Rouge and Sonic were speaking, the former asking various questions about the hero's life while the later did his best to answer them as accurately as possible.

And Shadow just sat there, listening to the conversation of those two.

(But if you were to ask him, he would tell you the conversation had been absolutely _stupid so far.)_

"What is the color of the walls in your bedroom?"

_See?_

The ebony agent huffed into the mug of coffee, which he had prepared himself before this whole 'interrogation session' started. "Rouge, serious questions."

The white bat looked at him over her shoulder, her lips twisting into something that vaguely seemed like a pout. "You're no fun," she said before she focused back on the hedgehog before her. "Alright, then—My next question is..."

Few seconds of silence passed...which grew into a half minute...and then into a whole one...

"You have no idea what to ask him, do you?" Shadow asked with a sigh, taking a sip of his coffee while Rouge sent him a half-meant glare.

"Try to think of one yourself, sunshine, then you'll see how hard is it."

Shadow sighed and, setting down his mug, he started to speak, "About a year ago you stole my Chaos Emerald to make me race you in one of Doctor's old lairs. What stopped our race?"

For some strange reason Sonic's cheeks visibly reddened at the question, this strange occurrence making the bat's brow rise in a silent inquiry.

"Umm...do I really have to answer that question?"

An amused smirk morphed on the dark agent's face at the question, Rouge finally understanding that this particular event must have been somehow embarrassing for Sonic to make him react this way.

"Yes, you have to," Shadow replied, the amused smirk not leaving his face even when green eyes focused their gaze onto the ground, apparently finding Shadow's wooden floor easier to look at than either of the two agents at the moment.

"Well, the lair was old, rusty and there was a lot of stuff lying around. I didn't want to waste time by running around them so instead I kept jumping over the stuff, but once, the floor where I landed suddenly crumbled and I feel through it into some water container. And you had to get me out because there was no way I could do it myself—Are ya happy now?" Sonic asked, his cheeks red with humiliation—Shadow knew he wouldn't share this embarrassing story with anybody.

Even if it was your own brother demanding to know why are you destroying the lovely carpet in his living room by letting a sickly green water drip from you onto it.

"You forgot the part where you screamed like a little girl, 'I'm going to drown!'—" But that wouldn't stop the dark hedgehog from doing it himself, would it? "—But otherwise it's an absolutely correct answer."

Rouge watched as the blue spiny head shot up and the blue hedgehog send a glare to his dark double for his comment. Yes, embarrassing things were probably the only way for the blue hedgehog how to prove he was truly who he claimed to be; normally people don't share things like this with just anybody.

But, unfortunately, Rouge didn't share any embarrassing history with the blue boy. However, that didn't meant she couldn't lend a helping hand.

The white bat coughed loudly to draw the attention of the glaring hedgehog and the one he was glaring at to herself. "After the Time Eater incident was over, we spoke at your party. What was our conversation about?"

A confusion inched its way to Sonic's face. "We didn't talk at my party."

"We did," Rouge insisted, her eyes not leaving the other's face for even a split of second as the female agent waited for him to do some mistake—a gesture that would reveal his fraud...

However, no such thing happened as Sonic only crossed his arms, a frown now decorating his face. "We didn't. I'm sure."

But Rouge refused to let him go that easily. "We did. We spoke under that giant oak tree, don't you remember?"

Sonic's frown deepened even more. "Oak tree? There were no oaks around."

"There were plenty of oaks around. How come you don't remember them if you were there? It kinda makes me doubtful if you truly were the Sonic that was there—"

"Can I talk to you for a minute, Rouge?" Shadow asked, not waiting for the bat's response and instead dragging her right back into the corridor.

Right after the door clicked shut, Rouge immediately turned to face her colleague, mild anger and annoyance visible in her features. "Why did you drag me here?! Just a little more pressure and I would break him and make him confess to us!"

Shadow mirrored his co-worker's expression, his tone resembling a growl when he spoke up: "We are trying to prove that he _is_ Sonic, not that he isn't!"

"There's a chance he _isn't_ ," Rouge argued, not raising her voice like her colleague but instead speaking clearly and slowly to emphasize her point.

Shadow's lips twisted into a scowl at her remark, his tone more of hiss than growl this time. "He _is_."

They stared at each other, neither of them willing to admit the other could be right. However, the eye-contact lasted only for few moments before it occurred to both of them that glaring at each other won't solve anything.

Crimson eyes were the first to turn away, disappearing under the dark eyelids as their owner sighed tiredly. "You hadn't talked on the party with Sonic."

"No, I hadn't," Rouge admitted. It was meant to be a trick. The real Sonic wouldn't step back even when she tried to push him. But an imposter would start to doubt, he would wonder if the info that he got on the person they were trying to impersonate was correct.

She learned that long ago when she made this mistake.

But she still couldn't understand why Shadow opposed the idea of this Sonic being an imposter so vehemently. She expected Shadow to be skeptical about him like her. Was it because of that 'chaos wave length' thing she did not understand? Or did it have something to do with the drastic relationship change of the two hedgehogs? She still wasn't sure what exactly had happened but she felt their relationship had changed drastically since Dr. Eggman was gone.

They weren't after each other's throat like before. Now their fighting seemed more like friendly bickering. Well, it could get little bloody sometimes, but people have strange ways of showing they like somebody.

Or that's at least how it had been until the real Sonic disappeared.

"What makes you so sure it's truly him?" Rouge asked, the sound of her voice making her colleague open his eyes.

However, instead of answering her question the dark hedgehog said only this, "Do as you please."

Rouge blinked at this sudden remark, confused and surprised at the same time. Was Shadow starting to think that the blue boy was an imposter as well?

But then a big smirk stretched across the dark hedgehog's face and she knew that wasn't the case here. "But you'll fail."

Rouge blinked surprisedly again. Shadow still seemed as confident about being right as when they discussed this for the first time. But she couldn't let herself get affected by that. She had to do everything in her power to prove her theory.

"Watch me," she replied with a smirk of her own, straightening her clothes. Then she put on a confident smile and opened the door. "Alright, my next question is—!"

~O~

It wasn't until many hours later that Rouge's eyes caught a glimpse of the clock which was hanging on the wall. Up to this point the blue hedgehog had answered all their questions correctly—even if it was another embarrassing question or some personal one.

(But those were mostly asked by Shadow, which made Rouge wonder how it came that the dark hedgehog even knew all those things about the blue boy).

If she had to decide right now, based only on what she saw and heard in the last several hours, she would say that the person before her was truly Sonic the Hedgehog.

However, there was much more information to work with than those last hours. Sonic was gone for three months and he claimed than he **was at home** most of this time. So, how it came that Tails, who lived with him, hadn't seen a single glimpse of him during this time?

Actually, the entire memory loss issue was weird. It wasn't even a memory loss—more like altered memory. Sonic remembered the weather, the movies that had played on TV and even recalled few other things from the news as well.

Of course, there was the 'escape from Doctor Eggman' story as well. They knew that at least the Chaos Control part was true because, after all, Shadow found injured Sonic in the middle of the forest and he admitted he felt strange chaos vibrations while he was in the area—and these vibrations could easily be caused by teleporting without the use of an Emerald. Shadow also pointed out that the blue boy should be dead after carrying out such 'unbelievable stupid idea' as he called it. This remark was soon followed by an entire lecture on how unbelievably dangerous such form of traveling was, which made Rouge laugh as the scene looked more like Shadow was scolding the blue hedgehog rather than explaining how dangerous it was.

However, that was already some time ago and right now the two hedgehogs were calmly talking about something, the words entering one of Rouge's ears and then leaving through the other without her even registering their meaning while doing so.

It almost seemed like if the world became the peaceful place it once was.

But then Rouge snapped back into reality. She shouldn't let her guard down like this. Could that be the aim of the imposter? Making them feel safe and then strike?

She focused her attention back on the assumed imposter, realizing that couldn't be it at the very moment she laid her eyes on him. The blue boy was badly injured and his entire body shook just while talking. Attack would be impossible for him in this condition.

His body language wasn't showing any sings of nervosity or vigilance either—his guard obviously completely down and she doubted any secret agent would be foolish enough to do so in the enemy's territory. Maybe he really was the real one...

He looked like and had a voice of Sonic. The way his body moved and the way he talked, it was all like Sonic. To her he seemed absolutely the same as she remembered him to be.

However, she wasn't the best person to judge as she had never been that close to Sonic. To her it might look like a perfect copy even though there might be some flaws she had overlooked. Only people that were very close to Sonic would be able to tell the real one and perfect imposter apart.

After all, if you place twins before somebody for the first time, they won't be able to recognize them—but somebody that knows them would immediately be able to tell who is who.

Teal eyes, now filled with curiosity, turned to Shadow.

Maybe he was able to spot the little things she couldn't? Could that be the real reason why he was so sure this Sonic was the real one?

She sighed, rubbing her temples. All that thinking was causing her serious headache. She looked at the clock once again, seeing how late it was and so she stood up, bringing the attention of both hedgehogs to her with the action.

"Well, it seems I'll have to leave you now. I'm still officially at my work shift, after all," she said, giving them both a wink before she turned her gaze pointedly to her colleague. "By the way, hon, Commander told me that if you don't show up at work in a week, he's going to add you on the 'wanted' list again."

Shadow shrugged his shoulders, clearly not bothered by this news at all. "Tell him I don't care."

Rouge sighed tiredly, clearly expecting such answer. "Sure, hon." She headed for the exit, waving her ring-decorated hand during the action. "See you later," she said and few seconds after that the hedgehog duo could hear as the main door was shut, announcing her departure.

"Okay, now when she's gone—be honest with me. What was _all that_ about?" Sonic asked, still wondering why had they been questioning him. They didn't really think he was an imposter, do they?

Taking the mug with the remains of his cold coffee from the table, Shadow shrugged his shoulders and answered truthfully—there was no reason to lie after all. "She was trying to prove that you're an imposter."

"Huh? Why?" The blue hedgehog raised his brow questioningly. So, they really thought he was an imposter?

"The imposter already tried to trick us once into thinking he's you. She expected he could try to do that again," Shadow replied, finishing his last gulp of coffee.

Sonic blinked in surprise. Shadow hadn't used 'we'. Was that supposed to tell him something? Like that the agent believed him to be the real deal? "But how did she even get the idea that I might not be me?"

...was it just him or did he just sound like he had some kind of existential crisis?

"Well, nobody has seen you for three months..." Shadow set the mug back on the table. "Plus you suddenly showed up again and didn't remember such an important event like the Doctor's death even though you saw it with your very eyes, so I suppose that's what triggered her suspicion."

"I see..." Sonic mumbled, nodding. So that was why she had been so wary of him.. "How did Eggman even die?"

The ebony agent leaned back in his armchair, laying his hands into his lap as he started to speak, "A year ago Doctor threatened the world that he'd freeze the entire planet if all nations didn't surrender to him. However, not a single country agreed to his demands. So he gave them an time-limited ultimatum. Me, you, Rouge and the echidna went to sabotage his freezing machine, before he could carry out his threat. We traveled to Holoska, where Doctor's lair was—"

With confusion inching its way to his face, the cobalt hero furrowed his brows. He remembered this event but Eggman surely hadn't died there...

"—You and me went to distract the Doctor while Rouge and Knuckles went to sabotage the machine—"

Sonic was even more confused now. He clearly remembered that Knuckles had gone with _him_ to distract Eggman and Rouge had gone with Shadow to sabotage the machine...

"—However, Doctor's robots alerted him of intruders at the machine, so he tried to shut it down. But because of the changes that Rouge was able to add to the machine's system, he instead caused it to explode—"

Yeah, it exploded. He agreed with that.

"—The explosion was enormous. We all got burned heavily but otherwise acquired no other injuries. However, Doctor didn't have such luck. When we finally found him among the ruins, he was already dead."

Sonic was confused as never before. The explosion was small! They might have been slightly roasted but not burned! This made no sense! "But I remember the Holoska incident..."

The dark agent raised an inquiring eye-ridge. "But you said you don't remember it..."

"Well, I remember, but _differently_..."

~O~

Rouge stepped inside the secret GUN laboratory, the action not coming unnoticed by the only occupant of the room—who happened to be none other than the young genius, Miles Prower, to most people known by name Tails.

The young inventor turned to her just a moment later, smiling. "Hey, Rouge! You've been gone for a long time. Something happened?"

"Not really. Commander just needed me to deliver something," Rouge lied and it seemed the young kid believed the lie, because he didn't question it; though she still decided to draw the boy's attention somewhere else before he could start asking question. "Where is everybody?"

"They're having a lunch," Tails answered shortly as he took some cables to connect some computer part, whose name Rouge didn't know, to the rest of a giant computer that currently occupied most of the room.

"You should get something too. You're still kid in growth." Rouge advised him, which earned her a short shake of head from the younger one.

"I'm not hungry."

Crossing her arms over her chest, the bat leaned against the door frame. "You expect me to believe that?"

Tails didn't look at her even this time, fully engrossed in the task before him. "I'll get something after I finish this."

"Eat first. Your work won't run away," Rouge responded and then—most likely to _mock_ her—one of the many keyboards started to do exactly _that_. "...Or maybe it will."

The golden fox raised his gaze at her strange remark, letting out a laugh when she saw what was the cause of it. He picked up the keyboard that had been running away, revealing a tiny robot that had been hidden underneath it. Laying the keyboard aside, Tails picked up the small robot by his other hand, extending his arm to show it to the female agent. "This is J. I've got him here to talk to me when I'm bored."

"Oh, so that's what it was..." the agent responded, not that surprised by this information; she had already learned that Tails had a habit of building random robots when he felt lonely. "Then take him and let's hit the canteen! You must be really hungry after doing all this work." She gestured to the overall room, the action making the young genius look around the room and bringing a slightly surprised expression to his face at the amount of work he had actually done.

He rubbed the back of his awkwardly. "Well, I guess a little break wouldn't hurt..."

~O~

Rouge watched the tired fox before her as he poked his fried cheese with his plastic fork, the lethargic movement clearly saying he didn't really plan on eating the small bit of food.

The female agent sighed as she continued to gaze at the depressing and at the same time worry-making show. It had been like this for last two weeks. Every day she sat with him on lunch and every time he would just poke his food and never take a bite. He was losing weight there was no doubt of that—he was getting thinner and thinner with each passed day.

Sighing again, she said, "You should eat it."

The fox poked the food again, but made no move to pick it up and bring it to his mouth. "I know."

Rouge raised her glass of water and took a sip. "Then why aren't you eating it?"

"Because I'm not hungry," was Tails' simple response—the same response she already heard dozens times before. And like these other dozens times. it made her sigh.

But this time she was determined to make the young boy eat. "Sonic surely wouldn't be happy if he knew you're avoiding food."

Tails jerked his head up, a big scowl on his face. "Why would he? He doesn't care about me!" he called, clearly upset, and stabbed the cheese before him with the fork before getting up and walking away from the table.

Abandoning her own food, Rouge immediately went after him, her long legs proving to be advantage when chasing after the huffing fox kid. It took her only few seconds to catch up to him and then she fell into step beside him.

For a moment Rouge pondered if she was going to regret what she planned to do but by the time she reached a conclusion the words were already out of her mouth. "It's not him."

"GUN made tests. It's him," Tails responded, bitterness creeping into his voice. "My brother joined the bad side."

Not saying a word, the white bat watched the fox kid walking beside her. She knew how deeply the young one wished so much for it to not to be true. That it wasn't his brother. But as he said they made tests. They made them three times. All three of them were positive.

But there was also that Sonic at Shadow's house...

_I'm really going to regret this, aren't I?_ Rouge asked internally as she continued her attempt on cheering Tails up. "What if it's just some trick?"

"Huh?" Tails's head jerked up, blue eyes filling with confusion and curiosity. "What do you mean by that?"

And so Rouge started to explain, " _They_ infected our computers with virus, haven't they?"

Nod.

"You're here to help us with the mess it caused, aren't you?"

Nod.

"Maybe it was there before _they_ told us about it. That way it could be easy for them to change the results of those tests."

Tails froze in the middle of his step. But he snapped out of it almost immediately, his tails swishing around as he sharply turned to her.

"Y-you mean that they wanted to make us think it's Sonic?" Rouge nodded. "But it actually wasn't Sonic at all?"

With the boy's big eyes begging her to say 'yes', the female agent gave him a small smile, realizing that, yes, she would most likely regret this decision later. "It's possible."

It wasn't a 'yes', but it still was enough to bring a _giant_ smile to the small fox kid's face. "It's not Sonic! It's not him!" Tails cheered as he started to dance around, the sight bringing a big smile to Rouge's own lips.

_Shadow, I really hope you're right about the blue boy..._

However, the agent didn't have the time to bask in the happiness brought by Tails' own as at that moment her communicator switched on and the loud voice of the GUN Commander could be heard. _"_ _Agent Rouge, I request your presence this instance!"_

"What's the matter, sir?" she asked, pushing a button on her communicator so she could be heard even on the other side of the line.

_"_ ** _ **They**_** _called,"_ was all that the Commander said. But Rouge didn't need to hear more to respond, "I'm on my way," and to set off on her way to finally meet the group that had been causing them trouble for last three months. The group that accompanied the _fake_ Sonic while he committed his crimes.

The Destructix.


	4. Questions

"This makes no sense!" Sonic called out in frustration, clutching his head in his hands as he tried to figure out how could their versions of the same event be so different. He was _absolutely_ sure that the Holoska incident happened the way _he_ remembered it, but at the same time Shadow's version was obviously the right one—Eggman was _dead_ , after all.

Sonic growled. _Nothing is making any sense these days..._ "How is this even possible?"

Shadow had a thoughtful expression on his face, his brows furrowed, as he mulled over the possible explanations of this strange phenomena. "...It's possible that some different memories of yours have merged together and created this memory."

Sonic scratched his head as he pondered over Shadow's theory. It definitely made sense; he had seen explosions and Eggman countless of times—his memories could have gotten messed up in this way without him even noticing it. "But why would that happen?"

"Maybe you have hit your head when you performed that _foolish_ Chaos Control." His ebony rival shot him a yet another scolding look, obviously still disapproving his choice of attempting such a dangerous stunt. "You were out for a month, after all."

Not raising his gaze from the floor, Sonic kept silent, a small frown currently making its way to his usually smile-decorated face as the hero was trying to figure out why did Shadow keep bringing this topic up. He had done _way_ dangerous things in his life...

But then a realization flashed through the cobalt speedster's mind, green eyes looking up and locking with the crimson ones of his ebony counterpart for the first time in the last five minutes.

And with lips stretching into a big grin, Sonic announced his finding, "...You care for me."

In a blink of an eye, Shadow's mildly angry expression turned into an emotionless poker face, this reaction being enough sign for Sonic that he had hit the nail on the head and thus making the hero's grin grow even bigger. "Heh, I knew you had a heart."

"Of course, I do. I've got to have an organ that would pump blood throughout my body," Shadow replied just a moment later, the overly logical response making the blue hero roll his eyes.

"You know I didn't mean that  ** kind  ** of heart."

But Shadow apparently still insisted on _not_ letting this fact show on his body language, wearing that same unreadable expression as the agent continued to gaze at him silently. Sonic almost wanted to laugh at the sight as Shadow always reacted like this anytime emotions were brought up in a conversation—but the hero decided to keep his amusement to himself...for the most part. He placed a hand on his heart, exaggerating how moved he felt by this finding. "But...I really feel flattered."

And, as expected, the dark hedgehog sighed, mumbling something that vaguely sounded like 'Why do I put up with you?' to himself.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you..." Sonic grinned and leaned close, putting his hand behind his ear to show he was listening. This time it was the dark agent's turn to roll his eyes at the other's behavior—but the action was then immediately followed by a sigh and Shadow standing up.

Emerald eyes turned to look at the ebony hedgehog questioningly. However, Shadow didn't offer any explanation beside uttering, "I'm going to a store," before promptly turning around to walk away.

But Sonic didn't feel like being left behind. "Wait, I'll go with you!" he exclaimed and attempted to stand up, for a moment forgetting his legs weren't listening to him at the moment—which ended up in a _very_ **close** meeting of his face with Shadow's hard wooden floor.

"Ouch..."

The ebony agent turned around at his exclamation, this time raising only a curious brow instead of an amused one at his discomfort. "I don't believe that this is the proper way to walk."

"Oh, shut up...and help me..." Sonic muttered from his spot on the floor, feeling how his entire body ached from the ungraceful fall but having no strength to pick himself up on his own.

With another eye-roll at the hero's shenanigans, Shadow helped the cobalt speedster up, gently placing the blue body back onto the couch—no need to irritate Sonic's injuries even more with rough handling—after all, the hero was doing good (or maybe bad?) job at that himself.

As Shadow straightened his back again, he met Sonic's gaze again, keeping the eye-contact to ensure their owner would listen to his next words.

"I'll be back in a few minutes. Keep yourself from  _ trouble  _ while I'm away," Shadow said, the small drop in the agent's intonation clearly telling Sonic that Shadow meant 'face-to-floor troubles', which luckily for both of them Sonic didn't plan on repeating any time soon. "Alright?"

Sonic nodded reluctantly and then the ebony agent left, leaving the other alone only with his thoughts as a company. Though this time they weren't a jumbled mess of confusion as when he'd woken up in the night. This time they were definitely much more positive and heart-warming.

_ That sounds like you worry about me, Shad...  _ _ Sonic couldn't help but smile as he recalled the other's words; t _ he truth was that Sonic had always tried to befriend Shadow, but no matter what he did the dark hedgehog had kept on pushing him away...until now. Now, Shadow had finally stopped doing that and even seemed to be warming up to him...

Sonic couldn't help but laugh happily at the thought.

~O~

_6 DAYS; 18 HOURS; 12 MINUTES; 52 SECONDS_

Teal eyes continued to gaze at the countdown that the Destructix had left them with, Rouge's mind racing as she thought over all possibilities of what could come once the countdown reached a zero.

Would it be just another robbery? An attack on civilians? Or maybe something completely different?

So far the Destructix's attacks had always went the same way—the Destructix called the commander, they exchanged few threats and insults and then the leader of the Destructix announced when would their next big action take place.

This course of action might appear to some people as unreasonable, but only as long until they knew that the Destructix sought action—the criminals taunted GUN for this reason alone. Their leader had even confirmed this when he'd once thrown in, _"It's no fun if there's no danger."_

It was a simple explanation and very plausible at the same time. However, to her this motive made no sense as the GUN clearly was no match for the Destructix.

Yesterday, the Destructix had robbed the Bank of Mobius. And even though most of the GUN soldiers had been guarding this exact bank at the time of the robbery, nobody got even **_close_** to arresting the criminals.

The main problem was that they couldn't stop the Destructix from entering or leaving the building when they did _neither_ of that. GUN had been guarding all entrances, ventilation system and any other way the criminals could get inside the bank, but the Destructix had never went through any of those. They also had taken some hostages, so there hadn't been the choice of shooting them either.

And that was exactly what made no sense to her—When the Destructix had secret passages and hostages, there was nothing remotely dangerous about robbing a bank.

So, what could be their real motive for taunting GUN?

With the question reminding her of what exactly was she doing here, Rouge took a sip of her coffee and skimmed through the camera recording on the laptop before her again.

The Commander had asked her to analyze a recent video call between him and the criminal gang. He wanted her to use her great observation skills to analyze the behavior of the Destructix and to find hidden details that could help them to drive a wedge between the members of the group.

She had been assigned the task of analyzing the Destructix about a month ago; the Commander believed that if she watched enough documentation of Destructix's interaction that then she would be able to figure out the dynamics in the group so they could find a way how to make the criminals turn on each other.

She closed her eyes, in her head going over everything she had found out up to this point.

The Destructix had seven members, a green hedgehog, a big white wolf, a giant gorilla, a blue hawk, a green frog, a brown dog and a pale-colored lynx.

The leader of the group was the green hedgehog of name 'Scourge'. He was very arrogant and seemed to be very confident about his gang's abilities. But by the way his spikes rose and his body tensed anytime he was near them, she assumed that he didn't trust his gang. She could understand why.

The Destructix didn't seem to really respect their leader. The green hedgehog might handle all the talking and giving orders, but he clearly didn't hold much authority in the group.

She wasn't really sure how the group actually worked inside. The distance the Destructix always kept between each other showed that they were willing to let the other members _only_ into their social space; that showed they viewed each other as a group but obviously didn't trust each other completely.

The bat sighed as she poured herself another cup of coffee.

How exactly did this alliance benefit them? What was the common reason that made them work together?

At the moment she could think of one reason: All of them were criminals. They were going against the system and when doing so it was always useful to have comrades that would get you out of trouble. However, forming such a big group seemed quite strange to her; she could understand if it were friends working together or family. But seven criminals that didn't trust each other forming a group? There had to have been somebody who had gathered them.

But there was still that question: For what reason? What was the _big event_ for which they had been gathered?

This unknown person surely was planning something big. In the last three months, the Destructix had stolen three Chaos Emeralds, repeatedly invaded GUN's bases to stole weaponry and randomly conducted raids on innocent civilians.

She looked at the countdown again. Maybe was this the event that the countdown was ticking towards to?

Feeling a headache approaching, the bat clutched her head.  _ This is the reason why I decided to be a spy and not therapist, trying to understand other people is _ _ **just** _ _ hard... _

~O~

Her colleague, who was currently making his way back home from the store, would surely agree with her—he was having problem with understanding his own mind at the moment.

Sonic's awakening had not been comforting. He'd expected it to be, but it hadn't. He'd been really happy when the blue hedgehog had woken up, but when he'd found out that Sonic didn't recall most of the last year...

He'd felt angry. Both on Sonic and on himself. And he did even _now_.

On Sonic, because he didn't remember what had happened in the last year. He knew it was irrational from him because it really wasn't the _hero's_ fault—Sonic definitely hadn't made himself forget on purpose.

But Shadow surely knew that anger on himself rational _was_. It was his fault that the blue hedgehog didn't remember it.

Sonic had been heavily injured when he'd found him in the forest. He'd not been willing to risk taking him to hospital back then as the fake Sonic and the Destructix had made another raid on the civilians just the day before, injuring and killing many of them in the process. People had started to demand death sentence for the criminals after that, so he'd considered taking the injured hero to such unguarded place as hospital a bad idea at that moment. However, at the same time...

If it wasn't for him, Sonic would be in the hands of doctors and by now they could even know how to fix the blue hero's memory.

Not sitting on his couch, not remembering what had happened in last year.

If it wasn't for him, the Destructix would be the only problem around. Sonic would fight and joke with the new villains, happy that another exciting fight against evil had started.

Not being considered the evil as well.

If it wasn't for him, Sonic would be running around, helping people and bringing happiness and laugh anywhere he went.

Not chaos to his heart.

The ebony agent clenched his fists as more anger pumped into his system. He wanted to punch someone—preferably the imposter that was the reason they were in this predicament in the first place.

Crimson eyes swept over the bustling street, searching for someone or at least _something_ on which he could release at least a bit of his anger.

And for once, the Universe decided it wouldn't torture him and fulfilled his wish—as he judged by the feline duo, consisting of one female and one male, who had just emerged from around the corner and were now heading towards him, the female obviously trying to get away from the male.

"Leave me alone!" the female shrieked with tears streaming down her face, her eyes locked onto the ground as she ran away from her male counterpart.

"Honey, please, listen to me!" the male begged as he gripped her by her upper arm, forcing her to stop running with his greater strength.

"You cheated on me! I don't want to see your disgusting face ever again!" the female yelled, clawing at his hand with her sharp nails to make him release her while at the same trying to jerk her arm away from his hold. The male hissed in pain when he felt his hand get scratched, his hold weakening for a mere moment—but this was long enough for the female to twist out of his hold and make a step back. Seeing this, the male immediately made step forward and outstretched his arm again, his fingers almost curling around the clearly distressed female's arm again.

"But, babe—!"

However, the rest of the male's sentence was never heard as at the same moment his world exploded with pain and he was send crashing to ground, unconscious and bleeding heavily from his lip.

The female stared at Shadow with wide eyes, confusion and gratitude all swirling in her cerulean eyes.

However, Shadow just tsked, not even bothering to explain to the bewildered female why had he just punched her ex-partner, instead the ebony agent just let his arm to fell back to his side and stepped over the unconscious male, wordlessly continuing his journey back home.

Unfortunately for the feline male, his pain was in vain as punching him hadn't helped Shadow _one bit_.

~O~

With his sour mood still radiating off him in waves, Shadow pushed the main door of his house open, expecting his mood to turn even more negative once he would set his eyes on Sonic. But before the ebony agent could even make a single step inside the house, his guest had already yelled a greeting to him.

"Welcome back!" was what had sounded from the living room where he had left the cobalt hero. And even thought those two little words were practically nothing but a common, almost reflexive greeting, they still worked on him like a charm, lifting his mood significantly from the dark pit it had been in for past couple of minutes.

It felt nice somebody welcoming him back home again.

With now the tiniest of smiles decorating his face, Shadow entered the kitchen and started sorting the bought items and then putting them to their assigned place, anger no more coursing through his veins. Shadow stopped in the middle of unpacking the goods, wondering how it was possible that such a small thing could lift his mood so drastically.

Was it because of the loneliness? That couldn't be it, he didn't really mind living alone.

Was it because of the person that said it? That...That it seemed as if nothing had changed...

The ebony agent peeked from behind the wall, taking a fleeting look at his blue guest, who was now staring at the TV with wide eyes and a look of intense focus on his face. Shadow knew this expression well—there surely was some kind of cooking show or food advertisement currently playing on the TV screen. And in few seconds, Sonic would ask him for something to eat because of it...

_ Three, two, one... _

"Hey, Shads, have you brought anything tasty? I'm starving!"

The dark hedgehog couldn't help but a give a snort of amusement at this; he could already read the blue hero like an open book. "Define tasty," he called back.

"Anything sweet will do!" was Sonic's quick response at which Shadow had to sigh as such answer meant any sweet _unhealthy_ food. But that was no surprise; he already knew Sonic had sugar cravings from time to time. However, he definitely wasn't going to support this behavior—he didn't want to and even if he wanted to, none of the things he had bought would be able to satisfy the hero's sugar want anyway.

"I'll disappoint you but you are going to get only a healthy food as long as you are at my house."

"Hey, sweet can be healthy too!"

Shadow just snorted at the argument. "Name one that doesn't have absurdly high sugar rate."

"Er..." The hero took a moment before replying, "Apples!"

"You want apples?" Shadow asked with a sign of amusement slipping into his voice as he already knew what would the other's next words be even without having to hear them.

"Well...no." Shadow snorted. _Right in the bullseye._ "I would like something sweeter..."

"You'll get only nutritious food," the ebony agent stated with finality in his voice, putting away the last items before discarding the plastic bags into the trash can.

"Come on, Shads, I'm hurt!...But piece of chocolate surely would make the pain go away..." Sonic tried, the remark making Shadow snort again. The hero with his never-giving up attitude... "That's what painkillers are for, hedgehog."

"...Killjoy," was all Sonic said before falling silent again, clearly realizing he wouldn't be able to change Shadow's mind no matter what he tried.

Shadow chuckled at the thought. Yeah, things finally felt normal again...

~O~

A blue ear turned towards the kitchen, not hearing nothing besides the dark agent's quiet footsteps. He was sort of worried what he was going to get. He hoped it wouldn't be anything extremely healthy—like tofu or something.

Well, Shadow _didn't_ seem like the person to eat tofu, but he'd never seen the hedgehog eat anything in the first place....

Sonic scratched his head thoughtfully. Yeah, he had actually never seen Shadow eat anything. What could his rival possibly like?

It was at the same moment that the dark agent chose to walk out of the kitchen, carrying a plate and the blue hero caught a glimpse of something green, the sight immediately bringing a frown to his face.

He disliked vegetables so _much_.

Shadow placed the plate before him and Sonic could finally see what was going to be his lunch. He blinked and then turned his gaze to look at his rival, the hero's expression saying one thing alone:

_ You're taunting me, aren't you? _

"Do I look like a rabbit to you?" the blue hero asked finally, referring to the fact that the plate contained only a bit of salad and three carrots.

The ebony agent crossed his arms over his chest. "What's the matter? You don't like carrots?" he asked in what was definitely a taunting tone in Sonic's opinion, and the smirk accompanying it was even a stronger proof of this in the hero's opinion.

"I would prefer sandwich over this." The blue hedgehog took the carrot and bit into it, feeling the insipid taste only carrots had. Did rabbits really ate this stuff? He'd have to ask Cream about it.

"You'll get one for dinner," was Shadow's response to his remark, the hero raising his questioning gaze from the plate.

"Only one?"

"Maybe two," Shadow mused aloud before the taunting smirk returned to his face, a clear sign to Sonic that he was in for more teasing—and then it came, "If you are a good boy and eat your veggies."

Sonic frowned at the remark, making sure to chew the salad  _ very  _ l oudly to annoy his rival. "Once I'm able to walk again, I'm going to get real food at the nearest fast food..."

"I believe the only thing you will be getting at fast food will be getting thrown out for your lack of table manners..." Shadow commented with a stoic expression on his face, the remark earning him a glare from the hero, who immediately unconsciously switched to chewing quietly at the indirect criticism.

But, of course, Shadow only saw that as another opportunity to tease him. "That's a good boy."

Sonic's glare intensified at the comment, feeling the urge to taunt the agent back. But as there was no smart remark appearing in his mind, he just had to resort to saying, "You'll pay for this."

The smug smirk was now back at Shadow's face, warning the hero of another incoming taunt. "I already did. It cost two dollars."

To which Sonic had no response and so he just angrily took another bite of his carrot.


	5. Sonic Notices

Sonic hated dealing with any sort of problems that involved emotions as they had always been just too confusing for him. He preferred to deal with normal everyday problems that always had a simple solution—like, for example, feeling hungry. All he needed to do was to eat for the problem to go away!

On the other hand, emotional problems never have such simple solutions—for example crushes. There are only two ways to go about this—either keep silent or tell the person.

In the first scenario, it is possible that the feelings will just pass away on their own over time—but if they won't and the love-stricken person finds out their love-interest used to have similar feelings for them, they may forever regret not confessing.

In the second scenario, there is the possibility of getting all hopes brutally crushed or being gently turned down or—in rare cases—feelings being reciprocated.

Basically, it is possible to feel both happy and unhappy after trying to solve such emotional problem—there's just no way that would guarantee a satisfying ending.

That was the reason why he had never argued with Amy about not being her boyfriend—there were just too many possibilities of what could happen.

Either she would accept it and move on...or she would get mad at him and become even more obsessed with him.

However, even though he himself struggled with emotional problems, he was always willing to help others with them—be it by providing a shoulder to cry on, offering advice or any other way; he was prepared to give aid anytime somebody needed it.

But today he himself was faced with a problem—a problem he wasn't sure how to categorize as it surely wasn't a normal one—but at the same time he wasn't sure if it counted as an emotional one.

(Well, all the confusion was making him feel troubled, so it probably _could_ be classified as an emotional one...)

_But_ _what_ exactly was his problem?

His rival, Shadow the Hedgehog.

Sonic had never been especially attentive person—he wasn't totally oblivious like some people but he'd usually notice only the major things while the little minor details would simply slip past him.

But after being with Shadow for entire three days even he couldn't __not__ realize that the ebony hedgehog was behaving rather unusual.

He wasn't sure why it had taken him this long to notice something wasn't right. He guessed that the fact he thought of Shadow as a friend might have been the factor that had clouded his perception regarding the agent's behavior—that he'd simply assumed that after the many years of trying to befriend agent, Shadow had finally decided to accept his offer of friendship.

But then he'd realized the dark agent had never been particularly nice even to Rouge—who was indisputably his closest friend—and this little instance was what had brought the question that had started all of this.

Why was Shadow being __this__ nice to him?

Being nice to him was something that the dark hedgehog had never done before. As long as his life wasn't on the line, Shadow refrained from being even remotely helpful and kind to him—and instead tried to cause him trouble or humiliate him—be it by defeating him in a fight or revealing embarrassing stories to a __certain__ _bat_.

Of course, Shadow could be just being considerate to him because of his state—but even if that was the case, all of this would still seem way too much to him—not making his life worse would already be a big concession from the agent as doing so always seemed to make Shadow's day.

Chaos, now it almost seemed as if him just being here was enough to make Shadow's day.

Which was even stranger as before Shadow had always insisted he was way too annoying to be around. Thus Shadow suddenly tolerating his presence _—_ and seeming almost __fond__ _of it—_ was incredibly strange and kinda unnerving.

And, of course, there was this 'Shadow not being the usual egoistic jerk' part—which could probably fall into 'being nice' category but to him it looked as important point to bring up so... —which showed itself most boldly at the third day when the dark agent had planned to go somewhere and before his departure had asked him if he didn't need anything. When he'd said 'no', Shadow actually looked disappointed for about a split of a second _—_ which for an ordinary person's eyes would be something imperceptible but for his own eyes it was easy to catch the emotion flash over Shadow's face.

However, such reaction was not something he would expect from Shadow. From Amy or Tails maybe—but Shadow? He would expect something like 'Don't call me unless you're dying,' not this...

But the biggest problem about Shadow's sudden behavior change was that he couldn't talk about it with Shadow _—_ his ebony rival had always been unwilling to talk about emotions and after the agent's outburst three days ago, Sonic didn't even considered bringing this topic up to be a good idea.

Because, back then, Shadow had been clearly offended by him saying, 'You hate me.'

Which, of course, brought even more questions—Why had Shadow reacted that way? It was because Shadow didn't want him to believe he still hated him? Was that the reason? Was Shadow trying to build some kind of good relationship between them?

But why would Shadow do that?

The ebony agent had always been the lonely type and even seemed comfortable with that. Why would Shadow want to change this so suddenly?

Sonic put his face into his hands, letting out a scream of frustration. Why did Shadow always have to be so difficult to figure out?!

Taking a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down, the cobalt hero slowly uncovered his face, realizing that there was probably no other way to find out than to ask Shadow directly.

Chaos, why did his life have to be so complicated all the time?

~O~

Sonic was getting impatient. He was determined to face Shadow but the agent wasn't back yet. Shadow had left this morning while he was sleeping and even had left a small note that said he would be back in few hours—but the sun was already setting and the dark hedgehog was still nowhere to be found. And Sonic wasn't able to reach him anyhow at the moment as Shadow had left his cell-phone at the kitchen table.

—which, by the way, was currently driving him _crazy_ because it had been ringing for last __ten__ minutes and he _couldn't_ go and hang up the call because his legs __still__ refused to listen to his orders.

Usually, he was glad that Shadow let him sleep on the couch—because being closed in the guest room all day would be really boring—but right now he was regretting his decision to stay here; he probably wouldn't even be able to hear the cell-phone if he was in his room.

(But, seriously, who tries to call someone for ten minutes _straight_?!)

And just then, the annoying ringing finally stopped—right at the same moment as when the main door creaked open.

Feeling mild apprehension inching its way into his gut, Sonic gulped nervously, the rhythmic beating of his heart quickening ever so slightly. __It's now or never,__ he reminded himself before finally calling, "Shadow?"

"Sonic?" a voice called back, the event throwing him for a loop and making him blink in surprise as the voice was nowhere close to Shadow's—it wasn't even male.

"Rouge?" he guessed just as said bat entered the living room, coming to halt just two steps from the door. She placed one hand on her hip while the other dangled by her side, holding a thin black object that Sonic couldn't fully see.

Rouge tilted her head to the side slightly as if contemplating something, taking a moment before she spoke, "You know...I'm used to Shadow ignoring me—but I really haven't expected the same from you."

Frowning in confusion, Sonic raised his brow at the strange remark—he had no idea what Rouge was talking about.

The bat sighed and the she finally brought up her hand, revealing the mysterious object in her hand—which was apparently just a cell-phone, the device now being held by only two fingers and being pointed at him as to emphasize her next words. "Don't pretend you don't know what I am talking about—I could hear the ringing even from outside."

Finally, understanding what Rouge had been talking about all this time, Sonic's mouth made the 'O' shape, the same vowel leaving him as a sign of surprise just a moment later. "Oh! Sorry for that! You see, I can't walk and the phone is in the kitchen, so..."

The female agent blinked, confused. "You can't walk?"

Sonic gave a nervous laugh, a sheepish grin on his face. "Unfortunately, no. **_That_** Chaos Control has taken its tool on me..."

With lips pulling into a thin line, Rouge crossed her arms over her chest, mulling over this new __intriguing__ information. "I see..." she said, her eyes trained onto the hedgehog before her as she tried to determine how much truth the statement held—as, for an imposter, convincing Shadow he couldn't walk would be useful as Shadow then wouldn't even think consider the possibility that the imposter could sneak out of the house and cause trouble in the city while he was gone...

But it seemed Sonic was oblivious of the suspicious stare that the bat was giving him as he just casually continued the conversation, "How did you even get inside?"

"A spy never shares their secrets," was the bat's only response, her expression a perfect poker-face.

"Of course." The blue hero rolled his eyes at the evasive answer. __Shadow probably just has a spare key hidden somewhere...__ "So, what brings you here?"

"I'm looking for Shadow—but judging by your reaction, I believe it's safe to say he isn't home..." Rouge commented as she sat down at the couch—right next to him—the suddenness of the action making him raise his brow.

However, despite the fact that she must have noticed his questioning look, the female didn't offer any explanation and instead gave a question of her own.

"When is Shadow coming back?"

"No idea." Sonic shrugged his shoulders, looking over at to the clock on the wall to check the time. "He should have been back hours ago."

Rouge let out a sigh that clearly conveyed her frustration of having to chase her colleague for who knows how long and still not catching even a glimpse of the ebony hedgehog.

For a moment silence, interrupted only by the comedy that was currently playing on TV but to which neither of the two Mobians were paying attention, stretched over the room, the quiet tense atmosphere unsettling the cobalt hero. He needed to find a way how to break it...

And then an idea popped up in his head.

"Hey, Rouge..."

"Yes?" the female responded, still keeping her eyes focused on the space before her—where the TV was—giving an impression she was watching it but her glazed eyes betrayed the fact she was actually deeply thinking about something.

"You're Shadow's closest friend, aren't you?" Sonic asked, the random question finally making the female turn to him, a spark of curiosity about this new topic shining in her eyes now.

"...I suppose," she replied. "Why are you asking?"

"Well, you see, Shadow..." Sonic took a moment to formulate his thoughts. "Shadow has been acting, well, __strange__ for last few days. "

The female raised a curious brow at this information. "...Define strange."

"Nice," was all that left Sonic's mouth, but, for some reason, this one-word answer was still enough to make the curious look melt away from Rouge's face and instead get replaced by an expression devoid of emotions.

With this same expression on her face, the bat stared at him for few seconds longer and then—as if she'd realized something—she turned her head away from him, saying only, "Don't worry about it."

"Huh?" Sonic breathed, confused and surprised by this evasive answer. "What do you mean by that?"

Rouge sighed once again, her teal eyes turning to him once again. "You don't remember last year, right?"

"...No, I don't," Sonic answered after a moment of hesitation as he wasn't sure how to answer to that question; he did remember something and something he didn't—but Rouge already knew that.

She let out another sigh, looking down at the floor as she searched her memory for the details for her explanation. "About a year ago __something__ happened between you and Shadow—" Sonic was already taking breath to ask what this __something__ was, but before he could even voice his question, Rouge had already answered, "—but I don't know what."

She looked back at him, her expression emotionless.

"I only know that after Doctor's death you two stopped fighting and actually started to treat each other as a friends. It was surprise to us all, but neither of you wanted to share with us why—or how—that had happened."

The blue hero kept silent, not sure how to react to this information. He was sort of happy to know that the dark agent had not gone crazy or anything of that sort. But he was also little disappointed—he hoped that Rouge would explain Shadow's behavior to him so he wouldn't have to ask the dark hedgehog directly.

__But only I and Shadow know what changed the situation__ _,_ Sonic realized, letting out a heavy sigh at the thought. His memory was a mess now so Shadow was currently the only person that knew the reason why he was acting the way he was.

He was also quite surprised by this information—he didn't like to keep secrets and he really couldn't think of the reason why would the way how he'd made Shadow his friend needed to be a secret...

The hero slowly lost himself in his thoughts, unaware of the teal eyes which were still watching him intently.

The owner of those teal eyes still wasn't sure what to think of the hedgehog before her. All evidence was pointing in the direction of this truly being Sonic; he'd answered all their questions correctly and also he'd just now displayed worry about Shadow's behavior—which an imposter would have no reason to do—and even her gut was telling her that this **truly** was Sonic.

But despite this overwhelming amount of evidence that spoke in behalf of the theory that this person was the true Sonic, she did not plan to drop her guard and stop trying to prove the person sitting next to her wasn't an imposter—she wasn't the kind of person that would immediately decide that one alternative was correct just because the other alternative didn't have any evidence yet.

But then Sonic asked, "How is Tails doing?" and she was thrown for a loop.

Rouge blinked slowly at the sudden question that she hadn't expected _at all_. "...He's doing fine."

"Is he eating properly? He has a habit of forgetting about meals when he works too much," Sonic continued, his small speech making her blink surprisedly yet again as, to her, it sounded as if the hedgehog was truly concerned about the fox's eating habits.

She mulled over her words before answering. "...I always take him with me for lunch, don't worry."

"I'm glad to hear that." The cobalt speedster smiled, obviously relieved, now when he knew that his little brother was being taken care of. "He may be a genius but even he can act like a careless kid sometimes," he added as a comment, letting out a light-hearted chuckle at the end, the cheerfulness of his tone reaching up to his green eyes and making them sparkle happily.

Rouge stared at the blue hedgehog before her for a moment longer, looking at that relieved smile on the hero's face; it was a honest one...that kind that wouldn't even let you think about it possibly being fake.

If the other wasn't in the same room as her, she would have probably laughed because she just couldn't believe what she was about to admit to herself. Just because of one little smile...

__You've convinced me...Sonic._ _

~O~

"Finally!" Rouge sprung out of her seat at the sound of front door opening, arriving into the hallway just as Shadow shut the door. "Do you know how long have I been waiting here?!"

"Do I look like somebody who cares about you having to wait?" Shadow asked in a tone filled with annoyance. He walked right past her into the living room where he then let himself fall onto an armchair, his tired body sinking into the soft cushions as he closed his eyes, letting out a relieved sigh.

Rouge huffed, irritated by the other's response, as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Do you know how much trouble I have to go through because of you?!"

There was no response from Shadow.

"Hey! Listen to me when I'm talking to you!" Rouge walked over to the exhausted agent and then harshly tugged his right ear to make him pay attention to her.

And as expected, Shadow's eyes immediately snapped open, a mix of annoyance and resignation swirling in the ruby orbs as he growled, "Just get to the damn point."

Rouge uncrossed her arms and instead put her hands on her hips. "Commander is making my life a living hell because of you. If you don't return back to the work by the end of the week, you might as well never see me again!"

Shadow snorted. "What happened to the criminal list? He doesn't consider it to be a good idea anymore?" he asked with a smirk, which earned him another violent pull at his poor ear from the female.

"Just do me a favor and show up at work finally!"

"I can't," Shadow argued, "Sonic needs me here."

Rouge looked to the couch where their new topic of discussion was currently loudly snoring. "I doubt he needs your care 24/7."

"He can't walk."

"Then get him crutches! Or a god-damned wheelchair—!" The volume of Rouge's voice was gradually growing, the loudness of it almost uncomfortable for Shadow's ears. "—Whatever that'll get your butt back at work!"

Sighing, Shadow got up. He placed his hands on the bat's bare shoulders, knowing she needed reassurance as Rouge raised her voice like this only if she was severely stressed—and a couple of unpleasant meetings with the Commander couldn't achieve that.

"What's really happening, Rouge?" he asked, both his tone and even the usage of the female's name showing his seriousness.

Letting out a heavy sight, Rouge turned her slowly watering turquoise eyes to look at Shadow's steady red ones. "I think my marriage is in crisis."

Shadow blinked, quite surprised by the fact that she chose him to discuss relationship problems; she knew he was mostly clueless when it came to this topic.

"What gave you this idea?" he asked and gestured for her to sit in the armchair, which he'd previously occupied. Rouge sank into the armchair while Shadow took seat on the couch, making sure to not sit near Sonic's legs; the blue hero often unexpectedly moved in his sleep, randomly kicking or punching dreamy enemies and even though his legs might not be strong enough to hold his weight yet, accidentally well-aimed kick from him could still hurt pretty bad.

"I had an argument with Knuckles a few days ago. He was bothered by the fact that I spend so much time at work—and also by the fact that I work with _you—"_

Shadow honestly wasn't surprised by this information, Knuckles was very protective when it came to Rouge; he saw every guy as a potential danger.

"—I told him that you're just my friend. But then he started talking about my way of dressing—"

Shadow had to admit that Rouge's usual attire might be little revealing on the top, but it surely wasn't anything to worry about. There were much worse clothes she could chose to wear. Or she could go without clothes completely; it seemed rather popular amongst Mobian women lately.

"—Well, and then he said that I should stop with flirting. But why should I? I may flirt bit here and there, but I'm definitely not serious about anything I say!"

This time, Shadow had to admit that Knuckles had a point. "You really should stop doing that."

"What?!" Rouge barked out, clearly in disbelief that Shadow wasn't on her side in this matter.

Shadow sighed. "You're married woman now. If you have to flirt, then do it with your husband."

"But it's boring with Knuckles!" Rouge exclaimed, her mind getting filled with the memories of the many times that the echidna failed to decipher the hints she had been dropping. "He never gets the hints..."

"Then tell him about the hints," the ebony agent suggested, seeing this as the most reasonable solution to her problem. "If he knows he should pay closer attention to what you're saying, he'll surely start catching them."

Rouge sighed. "I would. But..." she started and Shadow felt the sudden drastic shift in atmosphere. "...I can't reach him."

Shadow raised a questioning brow at the short statement. "You can't reach him?"

"I've tried to call him multiple times. He hasn't responded yet. Yesterday, I even flew to Angel Island, but I couldn't find him even there. He's clearly avoiding me," Rouge stated, clearly convinced that was the case.

However, apart from her, Shadow was not; Knuckles wasn't the type to avoid a problem. Him disappearing like this was just...odd.

"It's been like this for three days already. I would make up to him if I could," she said, her indignation slowly slipping into her voice. "But first of all, he would have to show up!"

Shadow sighed. He couldn't really help Rouge with this. Knuckles lived on Angel Island all his life, he knew it perfectly; nobody would be able to find him unless he wanted them to. She had no other choice but to be patient.

"Just let him cool down. He'll come once he's prepared to talk with you about it."

~O~

In reality, Knuckles would _love_ to talk to Rouge about it. He'd realized that the bat had always been like this. He just hadn't noticed it because before he hadn't been so concerned about how the gem thief was talking with other people around her.

He surely would make it up to her. If he wasn't tied up, he surely would make it up to her.

But all he could do now was to look daggers at the green hedgehog before him.

However, this specific hedgehog didn't look even remotely fazed by this show of hostility, instead Scourge just chuckled, clearly amused by it.

"Oh, don't give me that look—yet. Worse things will come to you soon..."


	6. Back To Work

Feeling warm water run over his aching body, Sonic couldn't help but sigh in delight. Despite the fact that he absolutely despised water, warm shower always worked wonders on him; it took all the accumulated stress and pain from his system, washed it down the drain and replaced it with peaceful contentment.

It was quite early in the morning; around five if he should guess. Being awake this early was rather unusual for him but since he'd woken up just twenty minutes ago, he'd been unable to fall asleep again. Fortunately, his legs had finally regained their strength after a week of not listening to him, so he was able to walk on his own again and capable of moving from one room to another—and, of course, he immediately used this fact to get to bathroom to finally have a shower.

Stopping the water, he stepped out of the shower, his hand reaching to take a towel from a nearby hanger. Once it grasped the cloth, he immediately brought it to his body and started to dry himself.

A pleased sigh escaped the peach lips as he rubbed the back of his neck; the aching feeling had finally left his body and in its place was now one of sleepy tiredness.

Sonic let out a low chuckle.  _ I just get out from bed and I already feel like returning there... _

The cobalt hero looked at the pile of bandages that were scattered on the bathroom floor; he had taken them off so he could take a shower, but he didn't think he actually needed them anymore. Most of his injuries had healed already and the rest looked alright to him; they didn't need to be covered anymore.

He collected the used strips of cloth into his arms and then stuffed them into a trash bin. Then he slung the used towel onto the edge of the bath, letting it there so it would dry itself at the air.

As Sonic stepped out of the bathroom, his gaze immediately traveled to the alarm clock on his bedside table, seeing it was still very early in the morning.

_Shadow surely isn't up yet..._ Sonic mused as he exited his room and headed for the stairs, all the while making sure to be as quiet as possible as he didn't wish to wake up his host. Most people hated being woken up in the morning and for some reason he had a feeling that the agent belonged to this people—and given the fact Shadow looked like if he had woken up on the wrong side of bed almost every day, he surely did _not_ want to face the morning Shadow.

As Sonic set his foot into the kitchen, his hand immediately came up to blindly search the wall for the light switch. Once his hand found it, it pressed the small button and just a moment later the room was illuminated by a bright light.

—and Sonic's heart skipped a beat from shock as the light allowed him to see Shadow sitting at the table, looking as casual as ever.

"Good morning," the dark agent greeted him in more-or-less neutral tone and then took a sip from the cup of coffee in his hand, acting as if sitting in the dark and almost giving other people a heart-attack with it was the most normal thing to do.

"Er...Good morning," Sonic replied, wondering how many years did the scare take from his life. "Is there some particular reason you've been sitting here in the dark?" he asked with a hint of curiosity in his voice as he walked over to the kitchen cabinets to search them for food.

"I see quite good in a dark, I don't need the lights to be switched on," Shadow explained, taking another sip of his morning coffee. "...Why are you up so early?"

"I couldn't sleep," was all Sonic said, most of his focus on the task of finding something to eat.

Shadow gave a low hum of acknowledgement, taking a short moment to collect his thoughts before continuing their conversation, "How do you feel?"

Sonic turned around with an apple in his hand. "Great!" he said, taking a bite from the fruit. "Though a little tired..."

"That's good," Shadow commented as he got up, with the now empty cup still in his hand. He walked over to the kitchen sink, placing the cup into it before leaning against the kitchen desk. He raised a curious brow when he noticed the hero's bare form. "Where are your bandages?"

"I took them off before taking a shower..." Sonic explained as he swallowed his bite. "But I don't think I really need them anymore."

"Hmm..." Shadow hummed again, the event then followed by a moment of tense silence during which Sonic finished his apple and took another one.

Then the hero spoke up to break the strange atmosphere. "Why are you up so early?"

"I always get up at five," was Shadow's response, the answer making the cobalt speedster raise a brow.

"Why?" So, Shadow was actually an early bird?

Shadow shrugged his shoulders. "I don't need that much sleep."

"Hmm..." This time it was Sonic's turn to hum, the speedster lost in thought as he pondered why Shadow was suddenly standing so close; the ebony agent normally kept distance between himself and other people.

_ It's probably because of that super secret reason...  _ he guessed, taking another bite out of his second apple.

Sighing, Shadow detached himself from the desk, curious green eyes immediately turning to look at him. Shadow walked to the kitchen entrance, half-turning around to look at the owner of said eyes. "I'll be leaving for work in a moment. Do you need anything before I go?"

Sonic blinked, surprised. Shadow was going somewhere? He wouldn't be here with him? It was unexpected. Yesterday, the dark hedgehog had even refused a direct order from the Commander (the man had somehow gotten his hand on the number to Shadow's personal phone), so he could stay to take care of him.

"Why so suddenly?" the hero asked, curious about why Shadow had changed his mind about keeping a watchful eye on him 24/7.

"Rouge has called me that there is an emergency at the HQ," the ebony agent answered, his tone emotionless, but then a mildly concerned look flashed across his face. "...You'll be alright on your own, won't you?"

"Sure thing, I'll be!" Sonic gave Shadow a thumbs-up, beaming a confident smile at him. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog after all!"

"Sure..." Shadow murmured, his expression alone saying he doubted that would be enough. However, he did not comment on it and instead turned to leave. "Don't do anything stupid."

"I'm not Knuckles," Sonic replied, smirking, as he bit into his second apple.

Shadow snorted at the remark, muttering quietly, "I wouldn't be so worried if it was him."

Then the ebony agent exited the kitchen, Sonic's quick "See you in few hours!" being the last words exchanged between them before the sound of the front door closing could be heard.

Sonic finished his 'breakfast' quickly and then he threw the apple core to the first one that was already resting in the thrash bin. He looked around, unsure what he should do now. Normally, he would go for a run, but because he still felt rather weak, he was rather hesitant about leaving the house; he really didn't want to pass out somewhere in the forest.

Green eyes looked over the room again, an idea popping up in Sonic's head. Even though he wasn't fully recovered yet, his legs were listening to him again, and he had yet to explore Shadow's house...

Sonic grinned mischievously.  _ Well, it's clear what I am doing today _ _ — _ _! _

~O~

Tails's fingers moved fast, hitting the keys in rhythmical order as he made last changes to the GUN's system; just few more hours of work and the GUN would be able to effectively defend the planet again— and the planet _definitely_ needed the protection of the GUN now more than ever.

As at the moment there was nobody else that could protect the planet from the Destructix.

Sonic used to be the first line of defense of the planet—all other heroes of Mobius just followed him. Without him the heroes were lost. Nobody really knew what they were supposed to do. They needed strong leader and there really wasn't anybody who could take the post.

Tails himself lacked strength and his hand-to-hand combat experience wasn't that great either; he would be taken down immediately. Knuckles was strong but lacked leadership attitude plus he was also horrible at making any sort of plans. Shadow could probably take the position—but most of the heroes still held a bit of distrust towards him so there would be a lot of tension among the team. Rouge could theoretically also take the post but like with Shadow nobody really trusted her.

Considering all these were out of that let only few remaining candidates: with Cream, Amy and the Chaotix.

However, Cream was too young, Amy was too much of hot-head, and the Chaotix...the only suitable would be Espio, but the ninja preferred to work alone and liked to deeply think through all his future moves—his cautiousness would surely make people nervous and that was something they ought to avoid when fighting for the fate of the world.

Was there anybody else he knew that could become the leader? ...Maybe Blaze? No, that would be a bad choice as she had her own problems to deal with and she probably wouldn't be willing to leave her dimension for a long time to help them...

The young fox quickened his typing pace. Maybe he could invent something to compensate his lack of physical strength. But even if he did that, the others probably wouldn't follow him either. He might be a genius but in most people's eyes he was still a kid as well.

Maybe they could have a combined lead? Everybody would be willing to follow Knuckles and he himself was skilled at making plans and strategies...

Though in a battle they surely would have to split and they wouldn't have time to just sit and talk about possible strategy...

Gloved hands became a blur as they flew across the keyboard from one side to another; he needed to finish this as soon as possible. Hopefully, with the changes, the Destructix wouldn't manage to hack the new system as well—but they couldn't be sure about that as nobody knew how they had gotten a virus into the old system in the first place.

Whoever from their group that had got the virus in there must have rather extraordinary hacking skills; the GUN hadn't even known that somebody hacked their systems until the Destructix themselves told them about it.

It was almost unbelievable; the GUN was the biggest military organization on the face of Mobius—and yet they hadn't been able to capture even single member of the Destructix so far. Nobody even knew where their hideout was or any of their weaknesses—not even fraction of the tricks the Destructix always had hidden up their sleeves.

Simply said, the criminals were the ones controlling the situation.

And the biggest problem was that the Destructix _knew_ it; they even occasionally called to taunt the GUN with the fact that they had the upper hand.

There was also the Fake Sonic. It was still not confirmed if he belonged into the Destructix group or not; he might work and be with them all the time, but from his interaction with the rest of the group it was assumed the Fake Sonic did not belong into the group—he just worked with them.

After all, they didn't help him to escape when GUN captured the fake hedgehog two months ago when, for an unknown reason, he tried to get into one of GUN's bases. Of course, his capture was immediately followed by GUN trying to make him admit that he was not the real Sonic the Hedgehog. But the imposter did nothing of that sort; he even encouraged them to take a blood sample.

GUN did so and the test was positive. They could not doubt his identity now.

But as Rouge had said the results could be fake.

Tails's hands stopped in the middle of the motion as he sank deeper into his thoughts.

Maybe...the imposter had wanted to be captured? To convince GUN that he was the real Sonic? Maybe he was the one that put the virus into the GUN's system in the first place? By putting the virus into the system from the inside...?

After all, there had been that unexpected electricity blackout just an hour later after his capture which had allowed the imposter to escape his cell and would have given enough time to install the virus...

_ That has to be it!  _ Tails realized. The imposter was trying to convince them that he was the real Sonic to make them think that the blue hedgehog really became criminal!

But...who could it be?

There had to be some kind of personal reason for this sort of revenge; people just don't go and ruin a life of random person—the imposter had surely met his brother before.

He knew only two people who were smart enough to carry out such plan; however, Wave didn't seem to hold this kind of grudge against Sonic and she also wouldn't be able to disguise herself so perfectly—which left him with the only person that one that would try to completely ruin Sonic's life.

And that would be Dr. Eggman—but because Doctor was gone for a long time there was no way that it could be him.

But then...who it was?

~O~

With arms crossed over his black and white chest, Shadow impatiently drummed on his biceps with his fingers, waiting for his bat colleague that, by the way, should have already been here ten minutes ago.

What on Earth could be taking her this long?!

And just then the said bat appeared from behind the corner, carrying a big cup of coffee in her hand and looking like if she had just gotten up.

Silently sipping on her drink, she walked over to him, a small smile slowly forming on her lips. "Look who've decided to finally show up back at work."

Shadow frowned at the remark. He wasn't in the mood for a chit-chat. "So, what is the serious situation that I need to know about?" he asked, immediately cutting the chase.

"There's none," Rouge replied and the corner of her lips twitched in amusement when the next thing she heard was a low growl of her name that clearly said, 'You better not have dragged me for no reason at all...' "There's only the _exceptionally_ serious situation you need to know about."

She resumed walking, Shadow immediately falling into step beside her. "Commander actually politely _asked_ me to call you because of it."

Shadow's scowl deepened. Commander asking? Not demanding? This had to be rather  _ unique  _ situation then. "What is it?"

"Global threat."

Both agents turned to look at the speaker, who was none other than the Commander himself. The man was standing in the entrance leading to his office, arms crossed over his chest and displeased expression on his face. "Is this serious enough to turn your attention, from whatever important matter you had to take care of, back to work, agent?"

"Yes, sir," Shadow responded quickly, not wishing to anger the Commander more than he already was; by the tone the Commander was using, the man was still clearly angry at him for ignoring his orders for last month. The Commander gestured for them to walk into his office, and once all three of them were seated and the door closed, the man spoke.

"The Master Emerald has been stolen."

Both agents' eyes widened in surprise at this new information but the Commander didn't pay any heed this reaction and continued, "We've tried to contact Knuckles the Echidna, but so far we've been unable to reach him or find him anywhere on the island either."

Rouge gripped the armrest of her chair tightly, trying to fight down the emotions of worry and panic that were starting to build up inside of her; however, her now shallow breathing showed she was not successful in this field.

Because even the GUN were unable to find Knuckles...

Suddenly, a gloved hand was placed over her own, squeezing it slightly, and teal eyes immediately sneaked a quick look at the owner of this hand—the dark hedgehog next to her.

Shadow returned the eye-contact with a steady gaze, his calm demeanor immediately bringing a feeling of reassurance that made her panic attack subdue even if only a little bit. She averted her gaze and then gave a nod to the Commander that he could continue.

"We have yet to confirm who stole it but I believe that all of us already know who it was..."

The agents exchanged a look. The Destructix, who else?

"And now for your mission..." He gave them both a steady look. "We believe that the Destructix will try to retrieve all the remaining Chaos Emeralds—which we, of course, cannot let happen. You two will join guards in the secret sector." The Commander now looked directly at Rouge, raising an eyebrow slightly. "I suppose that agent Rouge already knows where that is."

The bat chuckled at the subtle hint of her visits to Tails. "Yes, sir, I do."

~O~

Up to this point, Sonic had already seen most of the house; there were two floors. On the ground floor were the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and the storage room. On the first floor was Shadow's room—which he, honestly, first thought was a guest room as it was quite plain—and another bathroom, his room (the real guest room) and some completely empty room.

Most of the rooms were quite plain and rather empty now when he thought about it. He honestly had never expected Shadow to be...Well, to have useless decoration around his house, but this building wasn't really giving him the 'homey' feeling it should have; the room that best fulfilled this requirement was undoubtedly the living room—but he had a feeling that that one was not decorated by Shadow.

It actually looked like more of his style.

Maybe that was the reason why he was here now—it made him feel like if he was at his own house.

At this very moment, Sonic was occupying himself with searching through the bookshelf, looking through the titles, hoping one would catch his attention. However, so far most of the books sounded either boring or too scientific for his taste.

Though Shadow also had some classics like King Arthur and the Knights of round table. A small smile crossed his face as he ran his fingers over its golden-colored letters; his own Arthurian legends had changed their name to Sonic and the Black knight once he returned back to his world. At the time Tails had actually accused him of ruining a great book, thinking that it was some sort of prank that he was trying to play at him.

But when no other book caught his attention, the hero started to search for some other form of entertainment—which ended up being looking randomly through the cabinets that were in the room.

To his disappointment, most of them were filled with useful things. Like extra blankets, some papers, pens and other things. But as he opened the last of them, suddenly a photo album fell out, opening at a random page. Not expecting this, he reflexively made a step back, looking in confusion at the fallen object. The entire cabinet was stuffed with blankets, why would somebody put a photo album there?

Kneeling down, Sonic picked it up from the floor and once he was standing straight again, he started to randomly turn the pages, curious at what kind of photos he would find.

There was a lot of various photos of him and Shadow. In a park, at a beach, at some birthday party... It seemed that he himself was holding the camera most of the time, always dragging the ebony hedgehog into the picture with the other hand.

To be honest, he didn't remember taking _any_ of those photos.

But the thought that Shadow would want to keep something like this was surprising...

_ Maybe he really likes me, after all... _

~O~

"Oh, please, tell me that this is a bad joke," Shadow muttered under his breath, shooting a look of disbelief at the people before him as he wondered about the mental state of the Commander.

He could understand why he and Rouge were assigned to this. For special criminals they needed special people to stop them; they had unique skills that nobody else on the planet had. They were the top defenders of Mobius while the Destructix were the top villains at the moment.

However, it was still just him and Rouge against seven—or eight, in case the imposter decided to show up as well. Whatever the case would be their forces were clearly uneven. To be able to stand against the Destructix they would need extra people. The best choice would be the most skilled of GUN soldiers.

But the Commander's choice was really making him question the man's sanity.

"Hi! Long time no see!"

He didn't believe one bit that the Chaotix would stand even five seconds against the Destructix.


	7. Stolen

"So—What's the plan?"

"Still the same as an hour ago," Shadow half-hissed, annoyance clear in his tone; this was at least the seventh time that the crocodile had asked him this exact question—and he was very sure that if he heard it one more time, he would _hurt_ the reptilian detective.

"Hmm..." Vector grumbled, frowning as he was unhappy that the Destructix were taking so long to show up. "...What sort of music do you listen to?" he asked, hating the silence of the base; normally, he would listen to music, but his battery had died so he was forced to entertain himself.

Unfortunately for Shadow, it was by talking.

"I don't listen to music. I prefer  _ silence _ ," Shadow replied, hoping Vector would get the hint that he should shut up.

But the crocodile apparently didn't catch the hint. "Not even a rap?"

"Especially not rap," Shadow hissed and just a moment later the crocodile detective made the same expression Sonic did anytime somebody said they didn't like chili-dogs—the expression of the purest disbelief.

"How can you not like rap?! Rap is so—!"

Shadow turned his gaze from the rambling crocodile, tuning out everything that Vector was saying. He really wondered why—out of all possible people—Vector was the one that had got assigned to him to watch the sector. He could have guarded it with Rouge—or even the chameleon.

(He honestly knew close to nothing about the ninja, but he knew that Espio kept silent and that was enough for him).

But instead, he'd been assigned Vector.

Hell, even the hyperactive bee would be better than him!

The ebony agent shook his head and started to pay attention to his surroundings once more; Vector was quiet now—most likely sulking because he'd found out that the he was ignoring him.

However, the moment didn't last long.

"So, what's the—?"

~O~

Ears turning, Rouge stopped in her track, wondering if she'd just heard somebody scream or if it'd been her imagination. When Espio noticed she wasn't following, he halted as well, turning to her with a questioning gaze. "Has something happened?"

"Maybe," Rouge replied as she switched on her communicator. "Is everything alright with you, Shadow? I've heard a scream."

_ "Everything is fine, bat. That was just the crocodile,"  _ her colleague's rather vexed voice answered.

Rouge blinked in mild surprise at Shadow's clearly annoyed tone. "Is Vector alright?"

_ "He's surely going to live-"  _ Shadow started, but the rest of his sentence was drowned by Vector suddenly shouting as if he was dying.

_ "Mother! Is that you?!" _

_ "Sweet Chaos! Stop being such a drama queen! I didn't even use a half of my strength on that punch..." _

"Shadow..." she murmured quietly, sighing.

It'd been just three hours since Shadow came to work and he was already lashing out at the reptilian detective; something had to be clearly bothering Shadow as, normally, her ebony colleague was able to keep a cold head and endure lot of provocation without snapping at the person—Well, unless Sonic was involved; the cobalt hero just had natural talent in riling people up.

Just a moment later Espio sighed as well, surprising her with the action; she had never seen the chameleon express any emotion. Maybe was Vector really just this annoying...?

"Vector is hard to deal with sometimes," Espio explained, confirming her assumption.

_ Wonderful,  _ Rouge muttered ironically as she turned her gaze back to the device in her hand. "Just don't kill him, alright?" she asked, getting only a grunt as a response from her colleague. Then the line went silent.

She sighed, putting the communicator back into her hidden pocket. "Let's go." She gestured for the chameleon to follow her and they both started to walk again, officially returning back to the task of guarding the sector.

However, neither of them noticed the lynx hiding behind the corner which they had just walked past.

~O~

Sonic gazed at the photo album lying on the table, trying to figure out what exactly should he think of it. At first glance the photos were quite ordinary—just photos of two friends in random places. But the blue hero couldn't miss that it were photos of  _ only  _ him and Shadow; every photo, except the birthday party, had no people in the background.

He was the type of a person that usually spent most their time in group of friends, not in presence of just one person—plus Shadow wasn't really the person he would usually hang out with; he usually went to Shadow only when he wanted to race or have a good fighting time, otherwise they didn't really spend time together.

And, to be honest, he really doubted he had this many photos with Tails—and that kid was his best friend!

Also, the fact that the photo album seemed as if it was hidden in hurry in the first cabinet available was really strange—almost as if the ebony agent was _worried_ about him seeing it.

...There was  _ clearly  _ something weird going on between him and Shadow.

~O~

"My stomach hurts," Vector complained as he held his abdomen, face twisted in mild discomfort.

Shadow's scowl deepened at the clear exaggeration—if he has to suffer listening to this for another five minutes, the crocodile will receive another punch.

This time much  _ lower _ . At least the detective would actually have a reason to whine.

Dark ears whipped around as they detected a sound, their ebony owner immediately stopping at the spot and raising his hand to silently gesture to his companion to wait. Stopping, Vector raised his eye-ridge at the wordless command but otherwise didn't comment it anyhow; instead he kept waiting and listening and after few seconds of silence he heard it as well.

The duo both shifted their stance to a more battle-suited one, both fighters vigilant and tense as they waited for their enemies to appear.

But instead of the criminals only Rouge and Espio emerged from around the corner.

Four pairs of colorful eyes met each other, all of the filled with confusion and surprise; their sectors were on the opposite sides of the building, they _shouldn't_ be able to meet up.

With brows furrowing in confusion, Rouge was the first one to speak up. "How did you two get here? This is sector A."

"We've just walked past sign that said Z," Shadow said, gesturing towards a metal sign that was just few feet away from them. There, indeed, was written 'sector Z'.

Rouge stared at the metal sign in bewilderment, then she made few steps backwards, checking the metal sign that was in the corridor she and Espio had just come from. Her brows furrowed even more. "...But there's written 'A'."

"Hi, guys!"

The quaternion turned to look towards the new voice; and thus came face to face with Charmy, who was waving at them energetically, the bee accompanied by an unknown GUN soldier.

Even through the dark visor of the soldier's helmet, the Mobians could see that the human agent's expression was one of uncertainty. The soldier raised the visor of his helmet, his blue eyes immediately locked with the ones of the only female amongst them. "Agent Rouge, may I ask what are you doing in sector E?" the soldier asked, confusing the Mobians even more.

"Sector E? How in the name of Chaos could this be a sector A, Z and E at the same time?" Vector questioned, scratching his head as he obviously tried to figure out how could such thing occur. "That just doesn't make sense..."

"Well, this is actually sector D—We just replaced the signs," a new familiar voice, with slightly amused undertone, sounded, every single one of the six-membered group sharply turning to look at the newcomer.

—which, in reality, were _newcome_ _rs_ as all the members of the Destructix were now standing before them, wicked grin on each criminal's face.

Their green-furred leader, Scourge, tilted his head slightly, his grin twisting into a smug smirk. "Surrender now and  _ maybe  _ we'll let you live," he offered, his tone of someone that was sure they held all the aces in the situation, the other gang members behind him cracking their knuckles to strengthen this impression even more.

Shadow's posture immediately shifted back into the battle stance, the action revealing his answer before it could even leave his mouth. "Never," he growled, from the periphery of his vision seeing his comrades slowly move themselves into fighting stances as well.

"How, unfortunate." Scourge let out a heavy sigh, exaggeratedly pretending to be disappointed by this decision. "Then death it will have to be," he said, blue eyes watchful and unreadable as the criminal waited for the somebody to make the first move.

But neither of the groups moved, both just watching their opponents intently.

Crimson gaze glided over the criminals. It was six against seven—an unfair fight. With reinforcements they surely would be able to defeat the criminals; but like this, while they were outnumbered, it would be a tough task.

Not impossible, but difficult nonetheless.

The ebony agent locked his gaze with the one of the green hedgehog before him. Scourge was smirking widely at him, showing off his sharp teeth, most likely in attempt to intimidate him. Unfortunately for Scourge, that would not be enough to make him nervous; it was expected from him to stand against the Destructix's leader if necessary. Nobody else would be able to keep with Scourge's fast movements.

Blood-red eyes sneaked a look at the others.

Espio's gaze was locked with the lynx. Charmy was looking at the hawk and Vector was glaring at the frog, who was winking at him tauntingly. Rouge's eyes were jumping from the wolf to the dog and back, while the GUN soldier seemed to be studying the gorilla, most likely trying to decided what would the best spot to shoot the giant ape to render him immobile.

As it seemed all of them had chosen their opponent. However, Rouge would have the biggest disadvantage; she had two opponents. Luckily, her ability to fly would allow her to mostly avoid fighting until others defeated their opponents. Then they could help her.

He let his eyes sweep over the assembly once more, seeing how impatient they all were to start fighting which was understandable; even he was already starting to grow restless and his hands were beginning to itch in desire to punch somebody. But they couldn't just charge head first without some kind of plan, they needed a moment of surprise.

A smirk grew on Shadow's face as the necessary idea finally crossed his mind. It was simple but undoubtedly effective; the chance of Scourge seeing through the trick were slim to none.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he launched forward, right towards Scourge—and as expected—the green hedgehog reacted immediately, jumping out of the way of the punch that he'd assumed would come.

But Shadow didn't stop at the spot, neither did he turn around as the criminal had expected of him. No. The dark agent kept going. He leapt, closing fast the distance between him and delivering a bone-crunching blow to his target—who happened to be the wolf who, judging by his lack of motion, didn't expect to be the one to be attacked first.

The moment the wolf's body hit the ground, chaos broke out.

As Shadow expected all of his teammates went to face their opponents, while he himself focused his attention at Scourge, who was now glaring daggers at him for taking down one of his gang-members so easily.

Tan lips stretching into a smirk and a flash of dark fur was Scourge's only warning about the heavy punch that landed on the green criminal's jaw just a heartbeat later.

Scourge twisted away from him, a spit of blood falling onto the ground just a moment later. The green criminal send him a death glare as he rolled into the ball of deadly spikes, clearly planning to slice him in half.

Shadow was quick to react—he jumped aside before the attack could collide; but even despite this he was still send flying just a moment later—as he was unexpectedly kicked from behind by the wolf who had just managed to get back to his not-completely steady feet.

Rouge watched from the high as her colleague flew couple of yards away. She herself was having trouble with the dog as the canine Mobian was throwing people at her, even his own gang-mates—though the frog _didn't_ really seem to mind this treatment—and she also had to watch out for Charmy and the hawk who had also decided to fight in the air.

She was actually quite surprised how well the small bee fought; she wouldn't expect such fighting skills from a six-year old.

Vector cursed as the lynx and Espio both used him as a springboard a once more. The duo of ninjas used any surface they could get their hands (or feet) on to perform their crazy ninja stunts that he couldn't even see for most of the time; but apart from the lightning-fast ninjas he also had to watch out for his flying opponent. Though at this point he was kind of questioning if the frog could even be considered  _ his  _ opponent when the frog spend most of their fight somewhere in the air trying to take down Rouge.

Far from the rest of the battle, the lone GUN soldier was doing everything in his powers to defeat his own opponent. At first he'd tried to shoot him in all the critical spots but when this plan failed on that, he changed the tactic to trying to hit at least the gorilla's legs to make him stop moving. But when even this brought no results failed, he simply kept on shooting; he'd never been good at shooting at moving targets, but he'd never tried to solve this problem. He always thought that even his mediocre shooting skills would be enough to of this job, but this event was a true eye-opener to him. He'd let things get too far.

He _really_ needed to hit up the shooting range more often.

Red eyes swept over the area once Shadow was back on his feet, the ebony agent jumping to his left just in time to dodge the green criminal that had charged at him once more. Calling chaos energy into his left hand, Shadow counter-attacked with an attack of his own—his trademark Chaos Spear.

Which, however, his opponent dodged easily by ducking down while leaping forward and growling like a wild animal. Shadow dodged the incoming punch with practiced ease, roundhouse kicking the green speedster just a moment later. Scourge flew couple of feet away but he was back on his feet—and _before_ him—in a blink of an eye, the criminal landing a **_very_** heavy blow to his stomach.

"Ultimate Life form? More like ultimate failure!" Scourge commented with a smug sneer as he watched the ebony agent double in pain. However, his small victory moment didn't last long as Shadow used his partly dropped guard against him and head-butted him roughly.

Scourge stumbled, his hands coming up to his head in attempt to hold it and make the world stop spinning; however, Shadow didn't let the criminal recover from his spell of dizziness and repaid him the stomach-punch, making Scourge be the one doubling in pain this time.

The green speedster coughed up blood, the red liquid splashing onto the floor as he called out through gritted teeth, "Argh! Get him, Drago!"

Seeing a movement in the periphery of his vision, Shadow immediately crouched down—just in time to avoid getting hit in the side of his head by the wolf—obviously of name Drago—who had clearly waited for another opportunity to attack him. Seeing the white furred criminal had let his left side opened as he'd swung punch at him, Shadow used this opportunity and delivered a heavy punch to the wolf's lower ribs, feeling and hearing two of them crack underneath his fist. Reflexively bringing his hands up to protect his injured side from further injury, Drago howled in pain, stumbling back until his back hit the wall.

Shadow turned back and immediately crouched down once more to dodge yet another kick from Scourge. Then he jumped a few feet back to get some space between himself and the Destructix's leader whose fighting style (he now realized) disturbingly reminded him of certain blue-furred hero's.

All the movements were the same. Even the attitude. The way he could make him angry just by one simple comment. The only real difference between Scourge and Sonic was the blood-thirst and, well, affiliation.

Scourge sneered at him, and, with blue eyes blazing with anger, attacked him once more.

Meanwhile, far from any disturbing look-alikes, Rouge was gradually getting tired of dodging all the flying Mobians. And then—as if to emphasize her point—Charmy flew right past her just a moment later, the predator hawk right at his heels and teal eyes focused at both of them. However, this one moment of inattention was enough for the dog to finally hit her with the frog.

She let out a howl of surprise as four long limbs wrapped around her form and forced her wings flat against her back. The frog smiled a half-amusedly, half-creepily at her as she started to curse loudly, feeling herself fall to the ground at an alarming speed.

But, surprisingly, just as she was about to hit the ground, she was unexpectedly caught by Vector, the crocodile detective having no problem with the task despite her fast descend.

Vector flashed her a smile. "I hope you don't mind if I borrow this guy for a moment," he said as he dropped her ungracefully on the floor and then caught the amphibian by the throat to prevent him from escaping. Rouge, sensing she would just get in the way of the two, immediately stood up and made a couple of steps away.

She fluttered her wings a bit to ensure nothing was broken, planning to spring back into the air just a moment later. But as she was about to to do exactly this, all the lights in the corridor turned red and the alarm went off.

_ "Stop the intruder by all costs! I repeat: Stop the intruder—" _

Rouge furrowed her brows in confusion at the announcement. Intruder? Singular? But there was seven of them—

"Dawg! Get the bat!" Scourge suddenly barked out and Rouge didn't even have the time to process what she'd just heard as there was a sudden sharp pain on the back of her head, making her world turn dark.

Shadow sharply turned around upon hearing Scourge's command, witnessing as the dog threw his teammate's unconscious body over his shoulder, the canine now holding a gun in his other's hand, the weapon firmly pressed against the side of Rouge's head in a silent warning.

Seeing this, Scourge let a triumphant smirk return to his face. He stood up, smugly dusting off his black jacket, and then he slowly walked over to Dawg, the other gang-members following the suit not long after.

"You know the drill, Stripes. You let us go, we let her live. You try fighting back..." Scourge let the silent threat hang as he send a victorious smirk Shadow's way, his smirk twisting into a pleased one when saw how the ebony agent frowned and growled in frustration; there was nothing Shadow could do at the moment. He knew they wouldn't hesitate to carry out their threat if necessary.

"Oh, don't frown, Shads! It causes wrinkles!" a new familiar voice sounded, Shadow having to remind himself that the true owner of this voice was at  _ his  _ house and the hedgehog that was now grinning at him triumphantly—while holding three stolen Chaos Emeralds—was nothing but an imposter.

"Sonic..." Vector mumbled, glaring at the blue criminal before him, his hands clenched in fists shaking. The rest of the Chaotix regarding the blue hedgehog in similar manner, believing the person before them was once their hero and hating him for everything he had done as a villain.

Shadow glared at the blue imposter as well—but for much different reasons than the Chaotix.

"Ready to go?" Scourge asked the imposter, holding a golden ring in his hand.

The cobalt look-alike smirked. "Sure thing..."

Not wanting to waste any time, Scourge dropped the ring to the floor. With a soft cling it bounced off the floor and grew in size until it was big enough for somebody to jump through it.

Shadow frowned as he studied the levitating ring with distrust; it seemed to be some kind of portal as there was a flowing picture of a corn field inside of it.

Sending a last smirk their way, Scourge jumped through the portal, others following soon after. When the last one, Dawg, jumped through, the ring shone a bright yellow and then dropped to the ground, appearing as nothing more than an ordinary ring.

Cautiously, Shadow walked over to the ring and picked it up, studying it briefly. The surface of the ring was absolutely smooth without any buttons that could activate it, which meant that he wouldn't be able to use it to follow the Destructix until he figured out how it worked.

The ebony agent wrapped his hand around the ring tightly, angry at how things had turned out. The Destructix weren't supposed to escape nor take Rouge with them—they had failed horribly.

Now it was the time to tell the Commander.

~O~

The Chaotix were waiting outside the Commander's office, all of them angry at themselves.

It'd been already an hour since Shadow had walked into the office. From what they could hear, the Commander was accusing all of them of being lax at work while Shadow kept on insisting that they had done their job of holding the Destructix off correctly and that the ones that had messed it up were the guards that had been guarding the safe with Chaos Emeralds.

Not even few minutes later, Shadow walked out of the office, slamming the door shut after himself. He was furious like never before but when he turned to look at the Chaotix, he tried to keep his voice as emotionless as possible. He wasn't angry at them, after all.

"You can go home now. You'll receive your payment in few days," he said, turning around. "Now if you excuse me, I have a bat to find."

"Wait, we have an idea where Rouge could be!" Vector shouted to stop him; and it'd clearly worked as the dark hedgehog appeared back at their side in a single split of second

"You know where are the Destructix?!" he demanded, a look of rapt attention on his face.

"Well, we _believe_ we do," Vector said, rubbing the back of his head. "We have been searching for their lair for some time already. So we approximately know where they are hiding."

Charmy started to nod furiously. "Yeah! In the Great Forest!"

"The Great Forest?" Shadow repeated to ensure he'd heard correctly. The Great forest was still vast area to search in, but it was a step forward. "How did you found out?"

Charmy immediately raised his hand. "Me! Me! It was my work! I was flying through the forest where I accidentally bumped into the frog!" Suddenly, the bee appeared scared. "It was so scary! He wanted to eat me!"

Then Charmy broke into a sobbing fit and continued on his rambling about how he had to dodge a flying tongue that was trying to catch him and eat him. Shadow didn't really know how to react to a crying bee, so he remained silent, deeply hoping the Chaotix had more evidence on this matter than this one encounter. It could only be a coincidence, after all.

Luckily, they indeed had more evidence as Espio confirmed by continuing with the story just a moment later while Vector took care of calming down the bee.

"When Charmy told us this, we went to investigate. I've spent the last two months hiding in the forest and observing it. During this time I saw the Destructix wandering through the forest multiple times. However, because the lynx was somehow always able to find out about my presence, I was unable to find the exact location of their hideout."

Shadow nodded in understanding. "It still is a very valuable information. I'll go immediately."

Vector blinked confusedly as the dark agent started to walk away again. "Wait! You can't go alone!"

With a sigh, Shadow stopped at the spot. "It will be safer this way. The Destructix hacked our communication systems—They would know right away if I took any GUN forces." He turned around. "And I don't believe either of you is in s condition to go with me."

All the Chaotix members exchanged glances; Shadow was right, they all had some injuries and they were tired; they wouldn't be much of an use on a rescue mission.

However, Vector still didn't want to let Shadow risk his life like this. "But you're alone against eight! Give us one day to rest and we'll go with you!"

"The Destructix need to rest as well. If I attack now, I can get them by surprise," Shadow explained and then finally walked away, ignoring any of the Chaotix's next arguments; he knew his plan was foolish even without them telling him.

But he just couldn't sit around and wait while somebody dear to him was in danger.


	8. Rescue

With muscles tense and ready to be used both for fighting and fleeing, Shadow made his way through the corridors of the lair, making sure to remain as quiet as possible.

To be honest, he'd found out the Destructix's hideout purely by accident; he'd tripped when he had been searching through the Great Forest, which had send him rolling down the hill where the secret entrance was not-really hidden—it was a small a white door with the Doctor Eggman's trademark logo; he'd entered the place only because he'd felt strong chaos vibrations coming from this place.

Though he had to admit it was a smart move from the Destructix to use old lair of Dr. Eggman as a hideout; nobody would expect the lairs to be used after the doctor's death.

Feeling the chaos vibrations getting stronger, he knew he was getting closer to wherever the Chaos Emeralds were stored. However, those weren't what he was after. He was here to rescue Rogue—though if they managed to get the Chaos Emeralds in the meantime, he surely wouldn't complain.

Black ears swiveled around as they suddenly caught voice coming from down the hallway. The ebony agent halted in his track to listen to this voice, recalling the face of the owner of the voice just a moment later.

It seemed it was a time for a rescue.

~O~

Sonic closed the cabinet carefully, removing his hands slowly to check the door would stay closed even without him having to hold it. He had returned the photo album back there so Shadow wouldn't know that he had seen it; the agent obviously wanted to keep its existence a secret for some reason.

However, this behavior was still confusing to Sonic. He knew that something had happened in their relationship—Rouge had even confirmed that they had started to treat each other as friends and thus he assumed that they _had_ become friends.

But then why would Shadow hide a photo album that would confirm this?

_That means we are not friends._ The cobalt hero looked at the closed cabinet, frowning. _But then why did we spend so much time together?_

~O~

With head aching as if she'd been hit by a sledgehammer, Rouge groggily opened her eyes, confused; she didn't remember going to sleep.

And then the reality hit her.

_ Literally. _

"Oh, the Sleeping beauty finally woke up!" the assaulter shouted into her face, the action making Rouge's sleepy expression to turn into a disgusted one, as the frog's spit had landed on her face.

"Hey! Put your hands away from my wife!"

Rouge's head snapped around towards the familiar gruff voice of her husband, her teal gaze zeroing on Knuckles, who just like her, appeared to be tied to some tubes just few feet away from her.

However, apart from her, he was obviously injured.

"Chaos," she breathed out, horrified. She tried to get closer to the echidna, but her restraints allowed her only few more inches. "Are you alright, Knuckles?"

The guardian had a lot of bruises, some dried blood on the lip and a few scratches, but even though those didn't seem like they needed immediate medical treatment, she was still worried; he could have fractures or internal injury.

But just then, Knuckles turned to her, a reassuring smile on his face and his tone free of any pain, even suppressed one. "Don't worry, Rouge. I had worse."

Rouge let out a relieved sigh, feeling calmer now when she knew her husband's injuries were only superficial.

Suddenly, a sharp clapping could be heard and both heroes turned to look at the source of the noise—the leader of the Destructix himself.

"Oh, such a beautiful reunion," Scourge cooed, looking as if he was moved by their verbal exchange—but the married couple knew he was just putting on a show again.

"Unfortunately, you might not have many more in future if the GUN doesn't hand us the last Chaos Emerald in three days." He sighed, appearing saddened by this. "Because in such case, we would have to resolve to using  _ convincing _ _ methods _ ." His lips curled into a cruel smile. "I'll be so kind I even let you two decide whose fingers will be cut off first!"

The duo stared at him with disbelieving expressions on their faces, exchanging a quick unsure glance. Scourge _couldn't_ be serious...

"And believe me, I may look like a nice guy..." A lot of sniggers could be heard from his gang at this remark. "But I could give you a sneak peek what that would look like if you wanted—though I warn you, it's not a pretty sight..."

Feeling apprehension build up inside her, Rouge grimaced. Scourge seemed absolutely serious about carrying out his threat...

But, luckily, before Scourge could  _ try  _ to show them, his blue look-alike interfered, "You should choose something less messy, Scourge. Nobody is going to clean it after you."

" _ Traitor. _ "

Frowning, the cobalt imposter whipped his head around at Knuckle's quiet remark. "What did you just say?"

"Come here and I'll tell you..." the echidna replied in a low growl, purple eyes shining with desire to hurt the blue criminal.

"Knuckles!" Rouge hissed in warning, trying to make the echidna understand that he was stepping at dangerous territory.

But the guardian was as always totally oblivious

"Why are you still standing there? Are you afraid? Or maybe you've become a  _ coward _ ?" the echidna taunted, this remark apparently being enough to snap the last straw of the blue hedgehog's patience.

The criminal marched forward, an arm outstretched to punch him. "You dare to call me a  _ coward _ ?! You have no idea what—!"

But suddenly, without any warning except the sound of ropes snapping, Knuckles launched forward, his restraints unable to withstand the echidna's immense power. He punched the cobalt hedgehog in the face, effectively sending the criminal flying to the other side of the room with the action.

Astonished by the unexpected event, Rouge's only reaction was a blink of surprise. However, when Knuckles jumped back to her and freed her of her own restraints, she snapped of her trance and moved to stand beside her husband as he faced the Destructix.

Who, however, just stood there. _Smirking_.

"You really think the two of you stand a chance against the _all_ of us?" Scourge asked with a raised brow, clearly amused by the idea. "What an optimism!" He laughed and even though Rouge hated to admit it, he was right—the two of them really wouldn't be able to defend themselves against seven—wait, eight people. The imposter was getting up. _Shoot._

"We cannot do this alone," Rouge stated matter-of-factly in quiet voice, the remark earning her only a glare and a displeased grunt from Knuckles.

"You don't believe your husband?" he huffed back, clenching his fists.

"I believe in you, Knuckles—but I know your limits," she reassured him, placing her hands on the sides of his face to make sure the guardian's eyes would be only on her and not on the space behind the Destructix...

"So, you are admitting your defeat? This early?" Scourge asked, disappointment creeping into his voice. "And I was already looking forward to a brawl!"

Removing her hands from her husband's face, Rouge put on an exaggeratedly confused expression as she turned to look in Scourge's general direction. "Who ever said that? Have you heard something like that being said, _Shadow_?"

The loud boom of explosion echoed through the lair just a moment later as the Destructix were knocked off their feet by a Chaos Blast, the energy attack burning them only lightly but disorientating them greatly.

"No, I haven't, Rouge," Shadow replied, giving her a fast glance before moving his gaze back on the many groaning criminals on the floor.

Knuckles blinked, greatly surprised by Shadow's sudden appearance. It had been ages since the last time he saw Shadow. "Long time no see, Shadow."

"Indeed, echidna," Shadow answered curtly, his hands starting to crackle with chaos energy once again in response to a few of Destructix's members attempting to get up. "Now get over here."

Seeing they had already lost some valuable time by chit-chatting, the couple ran over to Shadow, whose hands now shined brightly—a sign that the Chaos Spears were prepared to be unleashed.

Hissing, Scourge finally forced himself to stand again, his eyes immediately turning to glare at the dark rescuer; attack from the behind was one of the dirtiest tricks somebody could pull on him. "I believed that heroes play fair," he huffed, sneering.

"I never said I am a hero," Shadow replied, throwing one of the spears at the still-disorientated hedgehog, the criminal barely dodging the attack and thus earning himself a light scratch to his leather-clothed arm.

"Gah! You ruined my jacket!" Scourge shouted, briefly inspecting the black leather and thus giving Shadow enough time to sneak a look over his shoulder at the couple. Knuckles was shielding Rouge with his own body, his fists raised defensively before him. However, Rouge was prepared to fight as well, her wings spread and ready to be used.

However, even though he sometime went along with foolish plans, Shadow himself wasn't foolish. They were outnumbered; they  _ needed  _ to retreat.

"Rouge, take Knuckles!" he ordered his female co-worker, who immediately did as told, seizing the hold of the echidna's wrists before promptly flying away. Shadow threw another few Chaos Spears at the Destructix to slow them down before speeding up to catch up with the couple, who were already out of the building and high in the sky.

Looking over his shoulder to see how closely they were being followed, Shadow noted with a frown that Scourge and the imposter were catching up with them—which wouldn't be much of a problem if he was alone—with the head-start he had, he could easily escape the duo despite them being able to reach super-sonic speeds.

However, Rouge herself wouldn't be able to escape them on her own.

Shadow made a sharp 'U' turn, surprising both of his chasers with the action as he was now behind their back. Curling into a ball, Shadow barreled forward at the surprised criminal duo. Luckily for Scourge, his reflexes kicked in immediately so he was able to jump from his way, but the other hedgehog wasn't fast enough; Shadow crashed into him with full force.

The momentum of the action sent the cobalt criminal flying into a tree, the imposter's unfortunate bare back hitting the hard surface of the tree, its tough bark digging painfully into it and leaving bleeding marks.

Shadow jumped back, landing straight on his feet and searching with his eyes for his other opponent. And he found him just a moment later—but, unfortunately, it was not with his eyes.

Scourge's heavy boot unexpectedly and forcefully pushed in between his shoulder blades, knocking him out of balance—which the other hedgehog immediately used to his advantage by roundhouse kicking Shadow in the chest.

Shadow gasped for the air that the blow had knocked out of his lungs. However, he wasn't even given a chance to remember how to breath before being punched in stomach.

The ebony agent honestly wouldn't be surprised if he had a serious internal bleeding now; this was the second time this day that Scourge punched him there. However, the blow somehow caused him to finally find his breath again, so he was not complaining—and instead he focused on showing the criminal that he wasn't the only hedgehog around that had strong punches around here.

Shadow sharply turned around, using the rotation of the motion to land a punch to Scourge's jaw so strong it made the green head turn and blue eyes widen. Seeing his opponent's brief surprise as the opening he waited for Shadow immediately started to throw a punch after punch, many of them successfully meeting with their target.

Scourge jumped away, growling as he finally was able to get away from the dark agent for long enough to regain awareness of what was happening. Then he lunged forward to repay to the dark agent.

However, apart from him, Shadow dodged most of his punches and blocked most of his kicks.

Which was however only because of Scourge's exhaustion. Both of them were tired from the previous fight and it showed in their moves. They both knew they needed to end this battle fast.

Shadow lunged forward, faking an attempt to punch the green hedgehog but in his other hand a Chaos Spear was already forming. Scourge fell for the trap and blocked the punch—which made him unable to block the incoming Chaos Spear, the attack forming a giant gash on his already abused arm.

Gritting his teeth in pain and hissing, the green criminal stumbled backwards—but Shadow was not willing to let him get away so easily. The agent leapt forward, planning to land another heavy punch to the other hedgehog's jaw.

However, he was send flying as one _certain_ blue imposter used his own body to knock him to the ground.

Shadow hissed as he hit the tough grass covered surface while the blue imposter had landed atop of him and was currently partly pinning him to the ground by his weight. The dark agent hissed and twisted from underneath the cobalt Mobian, shoving him to the side and onto the dirt floor.

The ebony warrior straightened himself and brought his foot off the ground, planning to stamp on the blue hedgehog's stomach to finally get him out of the way.

However, the blue criminal rolled to the side and Shadow's foot was thus brought down only onto an empty place.

—or so Shadow thought before the other screamed in pain.

With confusion, the dark agent glanced down at his foot that was few inches above the ground; there was literally only thin air to be seen between his foot and the ground, but he could _feel_ there was _something_ squirming under his foot.

_What the...?_

"Get off my tail!" the imposter roared, twisting his blue leg and then kicking Shadow in the back of his knee, effectively making the agent stumble.

The blue imposter jumped to his feet, anger in his features as he glared at the ebony agent, who only returned the look with his own confused one; the imposter's tail had been a feet away from where he'd stepped.

"Hey, pay some attention to me!" Scourge's loud voice sounded again just as pain exploded in the area between Shadow's shoulder-blades once again, the unexpected intense sensation making him fall to his knees and angering him to the point that he wanted to just say:'Screw being a good guy,' take out a gun and—

Though this particular emotion was replaced with a surprise just a moment later when Scourge was brutally knocked down by Rouge who had apparently decided the hedgehog would make a great landing platform.

"Whoa, this ground is incredibly uncomfortable—Oh! That's just you..."

"Get off my back, you—!" The rest of Scourge's insult was swallowed by the ground as Shadow forced the green hedgehog's head down again by pressing his foot atop the green spiky head, his metal skates allowing him to do so without harming his foot by the other's quills.

"You won't get away with this!" the imposter shouted from a few yards away, muscles on his legs already stretching as he prepared to launch for an attack.

—which never happened, because he fell like a sack of potatoes to the ground right in the next moment, revealing a red echidna standing behind him.

Knuckles cleared his throat somewhat awkwardly. "Uhm, so...What do we do now?" he asked, glancing from one agent to another, awaiting instructions.

Rouge's ears perked up as they caught a faint sound of running not too far away from them. She could even see moving figures amongst the trees. "Well, I don't know what you plan to do but I'm leaving before _they_ get here." She gestured vaguely to the direction from which the criminals were approaching, both males turning to look the same way she was looking tom and just a moment later the three of them disappeared in the forest, leaving only one unconscious hedgehog and one enraged criminal behind them.

~O~

"I'm back," Shadow announced loudly as he shut the door, locking it and then removing his shoes.

As expected, Sonic's head peeked from around the corner just a moment later. "Welcome b—Why do you like if you met Eggman's robot of a week?"

The ebony agent sighed as he closed the shoe cabinet, turning to face the other hedgehog. "I've met with the Destructix. It's not as serious as it seems."

"Not serious?!" Sonic repeated, shocked. "And that blood pouring from your head is what? A fountain for decoration?" he asked with a raised brow as he walked over to his rival, planning to check how not-serious the injury truly was.

He softly touched Shadow's temple, stretching the skin around the wound lightly as he inspected it. Luckily, the ebony agent didn't flinch or try to get away—like Sonic would do—and just crossed his arms over his chest in discontent. "You know I have an enhanced regeneration abili—Oh, yeah, you don't."

Sonic raised an eye-ridge at the remark. Was that another information he was supposed to know? "You need a bandage," he stated simply, which Shadow, surprisingly didn't try to argue about—the agent just sighed and pointed towards the bathroom.

"The first aid kit is in the cupboard. Left side."

Sonic didn't hesitate to fetch the aid kit, making his way to the cupboard immediately. He opened it, but made no move to take the aid kit and just stared at the cabinet's contents for a minute, deep in thought.

Shadow's behavior around him was just so  ** _strange_ ** . He'd expected Shadow to put up some fight in this matter; the agent always wanted to play the strong guy. He wouldn't admit he needed medical treatment until his life was hanging on the line—and this surely wasn't a mortal wound.

_ I really want to know the reason behind all of this... _

He brought up his hands and then finally took out the aid kit he'd come for. He closed the cupboard again and exited the bathroom, heading for the living room where he assumed Shadow most likely would be.

And just like expected, Shadow was already sitting on the couch. It seemed he'd just removed his torn and dirtied gloves, revealing his usually clothed hands to the world.

Seeing the ebony agent without gloves felt somehow...strange. Most Mobians wore gloves even to a bed and changed them in the morning—for them it was like underwear for humans.

...Alright, that was a really weird comparison—though truthful nonetheless.

To put it simply, it was sort of...intimate.

But Shadow had grown up on ARK so it was possible he didn't know this.

(And he didn't really want to point it out as he had been around without any gloves and socks at least for a month already. Shadow **_surely_** would point that out.)

Sonic decided to ignore the dark hedgehog's bare hands for the moment and instead focus his attention to the wound on Shadow's head. First, he cleaned the wound, which revealed the injury wasn't as bad as it had seemed at the first sight because of all the dried up blood. Secondly, he used a disinfection onto the wound to ensure it wouldn't get infected and then, finally, he put a plaster over it as it wasn't as big it would need a bandage.

Green gaze swept over the rest of Shadow's dark form, checking if there was another injury that would require a treatment; and when one bigger wound caught his eye, he reached for another cotton pad, planning to clean this particular wound.

However, before his hand could even come in contact with the wound, it was stopped by Shadow gently gripping his wrist, the gentle and warm touch of the bare hand feeling strange on his own...

"You did enough. I'm fine," Shadow said, red eyes deep but unreadable as they locked gazes with his own.

Sonic blinked surprisedly. "But that one as well needs—"

"No, it doesn't," Shadow replied firmly, his tone alone clearly saying that he was not willing to argue about this. Thus, Sonic lowered his hand, knowing that, when Shadow used such tone, it meant the agent wouldn't yield no matter what he may say.

"Well, okay, then," he said, his gaze falling back to his wrist around which was the other hedgehog's hand still tightly curled. "Hey, I won't clean it if you don't want me to. You can let go of me."

Hearing this, Shadow jerked his hand back as if he had been burned. They just stared at each other for a moment, Sonic trying to decide whether he should feel insulted by the action or simply dismiss it as Shadow's usual avoidant behavior.

However, this dilemma was left unsolved when Shadow suddenly stood up and started to walk away. "...I'm going to take a shower."

"...okay," Sonic answered—though his response clearly didn't interest Shadow as the agent didn't even wait for it, already turning around the corner and soon after that the closing sound of the bathroom door could be heard.

Sonic stared at the living-room entrance for a moment, trying to figure out why Shadow had left so abruptly. It seemed as if he had made Shadow mad again—but this time he had no idea  _ how _ .

Sighing, the hero stood up, wondering what he could do to make Shadow forgive him. Maybe prepare the dinner?—Shadow was gone for most of the day, he surely had to be hungry...

With a plan already forming in his head, Sonic headed for the kitchen to check Shadow had all the necessary ingredients for the meal he planned to prepare.

~O~

The moment Shadow stepped out of the bathroom, he could smell the familiar scent of food assaulting his nose. With fur still damp and towel hanging from his shoulders, he followed the scent and, unsurprisingly, found the source of the scent in the kitchen where Sonic was just placing two plates of steaming pasta with a tomato sauce onto the table.

Hearing him approach, Sonic turned around, beaming a smile at him. "The dinner is prepared!" the hero announced cheerfully as he gestured to the table.

Blinking surprisedly, Shadow observed the food-filled plate. He didn't expect the other hedgehog to prepare the dinner; he had no idea what to say. "It looks...tasty."

"Well, I did my best. Come on! Sit!" The cobalt hero gestured to the other chair as he sat in his own, promptly digging into his own food, taking a first bite. "Whoa, I'm better cook than I thought!"

Shadow slowly sat down at the table, taking his own fork and then first mouthful of the food, unsure what to expect.

It was _actually_ quite good.

For few minutes—as they both enjoyed their meal—only silence reigned over the room. But, as expected, Sonic was first to finish. The moment this happened, the hero got up and then walked over to the sink to place his plate into it, then he turned around and rested his back against the kitchen desk, looking the dark hedgehog over curiously.

He could see that Shadow's head quills were still slightly wet as the agent had most likely didn't try to dry them; for male hedgehogs it was quite hard to dry their own quills as a towel easily got caught in them and then it tore when they tried to get it out. Females usually used hair-dryer to dry them. Sonic himself just waited until they dried on their own.

With an idea popping up in his head, Sonic slowly approached the ebony hedgehog. He tapped the agent on the shoulder lightly, Shadow humming in acknowledgement a moment later.

"Hey, do you want me to dry your quills? I'll know how much pain in the butt that can be."

The dark agent shrugged his shoulders. "Do whatever you want."

Assuming that meant 'yes', the hero took the towel from Shadow's shoulder and then moved behind his ebony rival so he could start to dry the big quills of the agent. He choose Shadow's leftmost quills as his starting point, making sure to be careful and not tug too much at the sensitive quills as he knew how uncomfortable that was.

However, because of his position he couldn't see the frown that formed on Shadow's face just a moment later.

As the dark agent placed his fork on the now empty plate, he crossed his arms, the frown on his face gradually deepening until it finally forced him to voice his frustration. "Why are you doing all of this?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sonic asked, still working on the other's quills.

"Helping me with things. We are _rivals_. Remember?"

Sonic couldn't miss how reluctantly Shadow said the rivals part, but he didn't comment on it.

"Well, you saved me in the forest, I guess I'm just expressing my gratitude—plus I'm naturally a nice guy!" he added with a chuckle, moving from the center to Shadow's rightmost quills.

A low humming was Shadow's only reply to his remark, the agent now settling for just staring at the wall.

However, the blue hedgehog seemed to insist on cheering him up. "Oh, come on, Shads! Surely some people were nice to you for no reason at all!"

Shadow sighed. Yeah, Maria was always nice to him. But this was different...

Because the cobalt hero wasn't aware how his actions make Shadow feel; he had no idea what kind of relationship was supposed to be between them.

"I'm going to bed."

~O~

Scourge was furious.

_ Those bastards! _

He punched the first wall available, some pieces of plaster falling down because of the action.

_ Those fucking bastards! _

Another punch.

_ They think they can embarrass me just like that! _

One more.

_ But revenge will be mine! _

He punched the wall with both of his fits, the old structure unable to withstand the impact and breaking, leaving two wide gaping holes.

_And it will be a very_ ** _ **painful**_** _revenge..._

~O~

"Hey, Shaaaadow..."

Feeling himself gradually wake up from his slumber, the ebony hedgehog became aware of the prodding sensation in his side. Was somebody poking him?

"Shaaaadow.."

He was sure somebody was poking him. And the only person that was currently living in the same house was...

"Oh, shut up, Sonic..."

"But, Shads..."

The dark agent sighed as he opened his eyes, looking to at the blue hedgehog who was barely visible in the dark of the night. "What?" he asked, tired and just wishing to go back to sleep.

"I don't have a place to sleep..." Sonic replied, the remark making Shadow's brows flew up in confusion and wonder if the hero had suddenly became blind.

"...There is one more bed and a couch."

"No, there's not," Sonic argued, the statement accompanied with a shake of head.

Shadow sighed, rubbing his eyes to relieve them of some tiredness. "Has somebody sneaked into the house and stole them while I wasn't here, or what?"

"Rouge has the bed and Knuckles is on the couch," Sonic replied in the utmost seriousness.

And, for a moment, Shadow just _stared_.

~O~

Shadow stared at the snoring echidna that was sprawled on his couch, one leg dangling from its edge; the idea of sneaking into his house surely hadn't came from Knuckles' head.

He turned his eyes towards the stairs, knowing the bat had to be in the guest room. "Rouge!" he called, hoping the bat wouldn't try to test his patience and instead appear immediately.

"Get you filthy hands from the Master Emerald!"

The dark hedgehog turned his stare to the half-awake echidna that was now pointing at him and trying to look menacing. 'Trying' being the important word.

"Sleep, echidna, nobody is taking your emerald," he ordered him; and, luckily, Knuckles didn't try to argue and just laid back down onto the couch, returning to snoring after few seconds.

It was by the same time that Rouge finally decided to look out of the guest room. "Do you need something?" she asked, acting as if her sneaking into his house was a daily occurrence.

"You both out of my house," the hedgehog answered, arms crossed over his chest.

"It'll be just for today, hon. The city is quite far away and we all need rest," she tried to persuade him with a rational argument, knowing that logic was the best way to go when she needed to persuade him into something.

"Rouge..." he hissed, clearly not seeing this as enough of reason to let her stay.

"I won't bother you by anything for an entire week! What do you say about?" she offered, knowing Shadow would be unable to resist. After a brief inner battle on Shadow's part—as she could see from the way his eyes flashed—the ebony male truly nodded, sighing out tiredly.

"...Alright."

"See you in the morning then!" Rouge replied with a smile, the bat retreating back into her temporary room and slamming the door behind herself.

"Step away from the Master Emerald!"

~O~

Because Rouge occupied the guest room and Knuckled had the couch, there was only one way how to solve his and Sonic's situation—sharing.

According to a plan, Shadow was supposed to lay on one half of the bed and Sonic on the other. The dark hedgehog was indeed on his part of the bed. But Sonic... the hero had moved in his sleep from his own side of bed to his and was right now snuggling into his back—which was making Shadow quite uncomfortable and it also made him wonder how it came that Sonic didn't hurt himself by doing so; he had quite sharp quills on his back.

With a sigh, red eyes closed themselves. He just hoped than when he opened them next time, the world would finally be a peaceful place once more.

At least for a day.


	9. Race

Shadow slowly opened his eyes, the action followed by him blinking few times to re-adjust his vision to the rays of the morning sun, which were peeking from behind the curtains, the bright light alerting him that he had slept unusually long.

He looked to his right to check the time, seeing that the alarm clock was now showing 7:12 AM.

Closing his eyes and turning his head back to its previous position, he groaned quietly as the action made a sharp pain shoot through his skull, the sensation just intensifying the horrible headache he was already experiencing.

But despite this the agent felt no desire to get up and get some pain killers. He felt perfectly content just lying like this and relishing in the presence and body warmth of the hedgehog in his embrace.

Wait a moment...

...a _hedgehog_...?

Confused crimson eyes opened, turning to look at the aforementioned hedgehog just a moment later.

Sonic's arms were securely wrapped around his own ebony torso, face buried in his white chest-hair. The cobalt speedster's breathing was deep and long and he looked perfectly happy where he was—at which Shadow cursed mentally.

_ Why on Earth cannot you keep on your side of the bed?! _

But the blue hero wouldn't answer Shadow's unvoiced question. No, Sonic just continued to unconsciously torment the other hedgehog, unaware of the emotional turmoil his instinctual desire for warmth was bringing to life in the ebony agent.

_...Why do you have to make it so hard for me?_ Shadow asked, letting a half-frown settle on his face; he wanted this. He wanted to feel like this again. But he knew that at the very moment Sonic woke up the illusion would shatter.

Because Sonic would continue on his not-remembering.

Sighing, Shadow used all of his willpower to let go of the other hedgehog and then to pry out out of the hero's embrace. He got up and watched as the blue hero—still asleep—searched with his hands to where had the other warm body suddenly disappeared; and when he failed to find him, the hero just took hold of his pillow and snuggled into it, a content smile returning to his lips just a moment later.

The dark agent watched the scene for a minute longer and then—without looking back—he walked out of his room and slammed the door, the loudness of the action waking up all remaining occupants of his house.

~O~

Knuckles blinked few times, yawning. He slowly got up from the couch, stretching his stiff back while doing so. Yawning once more, the guardian looked around, just now realizing that he didn't really have an idea where he was.

The echidna scratched his head, thinking. They had been fighting the Destructix and then...

_ This is Shadow's house...  _ Knuckles remembered after a while. When he and Rouge got here in the middle of the night it had been dark (as Rouge had forbid him from turning on the lights as she didn't want to make Shadow aware of their presence) and so he couldn't really see anything and just now was learning what the interior of Shadow's house actually looked like.

The guardian yawned again, still battling his desire to return back to sleep. He headed for the kitchen and once he was there, he started looking through the various cabinets, hoping to find coffee; and after few seconds of searching he truly did and immediately started to prepare it.

The guardian was so focused on his task that he didn't even notice that somebody entered the kitchen as well, until this  _ somebody  _ spoke up.

"Hey, Knux! Nice to see you again, buddy!"

The echidna sharply turned around at the familiar voice, staring at the blue hedgehog before him in confusion. Then he realized just who was standing before him and charged forward.

Sonic barely had the time to let out a shout of surprise before he was unexpectedly slammed into the wall by the echidna, Knuckles' strong hands immediately curling around the speedster's throat tightly.

"Gah!"

Sonic immediately brought up his hands and tried to get the hands off his neck, but without any success; Knuckles' grip on his throat was too strong.

"You made a big mistake coming here alone," Knuckles hissed, his amethyst eyes intense and full of suppressed rage.

Gasping for air, Sonic repeatedly swung his legs, the appendages meeting their target—the wrathful echidna—each time with a loud impact but, unfortunately, still not strong enough to cause a considerable pain to the red warrior.

"St...op...plea...se..." Sonic wheezed, feeling as his lungs burned for air—and if Rouge hadn't walked in at that very moment, he would have probably suffocated right there.

"Knuckles! What are you—?! Let him go!" The bat ran to the duo, immediately using all her strength to free Sonic's throat from the grasp of the echidna, who let go easily—mostly out of confusion about his wife's behavior.

Rouge moved between the two, shielding Sonic from any further attacks while the hero gasped for the desired air that he had been denied for so long.

Knuckles stared at her, confused and bewildered. "Why are you defending him?!" he demanded to know, trying to find a reasonable explanation why Rouge was defending a criminal.

"He isn't Sonic!" she blurted out—and then immediately corrected herself, "Well, actually he is...The _other_ isn't Sonic!..." she tried once more, struggling with the explanation. How should a person even explain something like that?

"What's all the commotion about?" the mildly vexed voice of the owner of the house finally sounded as the agent entered the kitchen, crimson eyes looking over the scene a moment later.

Taking a deep breath, Sonic pointed at the echidna. "He tried to strangle me!"

Raising a brow, Shadow turned to look at the echidna. "I'm aware he is hard to deal with—But what in the name of Chaos did he do that you've almost strangled him?"

"What?" Knuckles blinked several times, his gaze jumping from Rouge to Shadow and back. "Why are you both acting as if this situation was absolutely normal?! He's a criminal!"

Rouge gestured to her colleague that she was not in the mood to explain anything; and thus Shadow took a deep breath and started to speak, "There are two Sonics. This is the real one. The other one that has been running around for last four months is an imposter."

Knuckles stared at the ebony agent for a long time and then he _slowly_ turned his head to look as the cobalt hero, who was currently giving him his usual mega-watt smile. "Happy to see me, Knux?"

To be honest, Knuckles wasn't really sure how should he react—as there were two things he wanted to do.

A) punch Sonic for not showing up earlier and B) hug the hero for not joining the bad side.

Therefore, he decided to do both.

He walked past his wife and stopped right before the blue hero. Sonic only blinked but did not move, awaiting his response.

The surprise on Sonic's face was great when he hugged him; but it was nothing in comparison to the surprise when he punched the hero two seconds later.

Tumbling to the floor, the hero let out a startled yelp and the GUN duo jerked in their spots, unsure if they should intervene. However, when no other attacks followed, they just continued to watch as Sonic slowly picked himself up from the ground, hand pressed to his recently assaulted cheek.

"What the heck was that for?!" he demanded to know; he had done nothing to provoke the echidna this time!

"For disappearing for four _freaking_ months!"

"Hey! It was not my fault!—Or at least I think so..." Sonic suddenly looked somehow unsure—which made the echidna confused in return again.

"What?" The guardian blinked in confusion.

A gloved feminine hand, accompanied by a sigh, landed on his shoulder just a moment later. "Let us explain..."

~O~

Knuckles took a deep breath. "Alright. So, to sum this all up..." The guardian turned to his blue-furred friend. "You don't remember one year of your life. You've spent last few weeks with Shadow and you have no idea what is happening in the outside world at the current moment."

"Basically," the cobalt hero confirmed, nodding.

Crossing his arms over his chest, the crimson guardian frowned. "Why haven't you told us you're back?" he demanded. "Everybody thinks you're a villain now!"

"Well, Tails knows!" Sonic argued, turning towards the only female in the room. "Doesn't he?"

The bat blinked confusedly, clearly not understanding why she was being asked such a question. "Um...no?"

"You didn't give him the message, did you?" Shadow asked, now looking at her as well; and that was when she finally realized.

"Wait, that was a serious message? I've though it was a secret code for needing to talk with me alone!"

The dark hedgehog would have face palmed—if it wasn't partly his fault. He truly used names of people only if the situation was serious or—as Rouge had said—only if he wanted to talk with her in private.

(Well, this also explained why the bat had showed up so early after the call...)

"So, when are we going to tell the others?" Knuckles asked, the remark earning him only a strange look from both agents and not the response he wished for. The guardian frowned. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I think we should keep it a secret for a little longer," Rouge answered, both colorful heroes turning to look at her questioningly. "You could help us with the Destructix," she explained, her gaze now clearly focused only on Sonic. When said male hero continued to stare at her owlishly, the female clarified her explanation a bit more, "Once we catch the imposter, you could pretend to be him and help us capture the entire gang."

"Oh!" You could practically see the metaphorical light-bulb appear above Sonic's head. "But wait—! I don't know a thing about the Destructix! How would I fool them?"

"For the most part the imposter acts like  ** _you_ ** ," Rouge emphasized. "As long as you keep acting like yourself, everything should be fine," she said, shrugging her shoulders lightly.

"And how exactly would I help you to capture them?" the blue hero asked, starting to get interested in this secret agent thingy; he was always up for some action—to him there was nothing more exciting than jumping into a group of enemies and then having to fight his way out.

"Once you get into their lair, you'll call us." Rouge said, a smirk tugging at her glossy lips. "Nice and simple."

"Well—you can surely count me in!"

~O~

It was only about ten minutes later that Sonic found himself—along with Knuckles—sitting on the couch in the living room while Rouge—with some minor assistance from Shadow—was preparing the lunch.

Emerald eyes turned from the cooking duo back to the television, where currently some reportage about the Destructix was playing—which was convenient as it allowed him to finally learn what did his new enemies look like.

The reportage was about a bank robbery of some sort. The leader of the Destructix—Scourge was the name, wasn't it?—was currently rushing and spin-dashing through the crowd of GUN soldiers, knocking many of them to the ground and injuring the others while his gang was doing the same; and in a minute, all soldiers were either unconscious or heavily injured.

To be honest, Sonic wasn't entirely sure what to think of the Destructix; they just jumped into the action head first, unarmed and seemingly not caring about the fact they were facing fully armed GUN soldiers. From which he could draw only two conclusions: either the Destructix were absolutely careless or extremely confident.

And judging by the way Scourge moved, he assumed the case was the second option.

Scourge was playing with GUN; he was jumping around, appearing and disappearing randomly, showing the GUN that he had the upper hand in the battle—as they just weren't fast enough to keep up with him.

From what he could see, Scourge moving around seemed to be the core of Destructix's battle tactic; he was keeping all of the GUN troops busy to give his gang the freedom to attack however they pleased as, like this, it was a child's play for them to defeat the distracted soldiers.

However, despite this fact, they still made all of their attacks fast and brutal. It was clear that they weren't just trying to defeat the soldiers as fast as possible—they were trying to give them the _biggest_ damage possible.

He was actually kind of disturbed by the show—but not because of the violence that was happening before his eyes—no—it was because of Scourge. His attacks and attitude, it all looked like if Scourge was some _twisted_ version of himself...

"You two have an identical battle style."

Sonic's body jerked at the unexpected sound of his companion's voice, the hero surprised by Knuckles' sudden decision to speak up. He turned his head to look at the red echidna, who looked mildly amused by his jumpy reaction. "We do?"

"You do," the crimson guardian confirmed, crossing his arms over his chest and focusing back on the TV. "Rather disturbing, isn't it?"

"...It is." Sonic nodded in agreement, turning his gaze back to the flashing monitor, where two feline reporters were currently discussing the robbery, as well. "What is their goal?"

Knuckles shrugged his shoulders. "Nobody knows. But given what they've been doing so far, it's most likely collecting all the Chaos Emeralds."

"They've got three, right?"

"Actually, it's six now," Rouge explained as she looked from behind the corner of the kitchen at them.

"What?! Six?!" Sonic exclaimed, sharply turning around and staring at Rouge with wide eyes. The female just replied with a silent nod, confirming that he had heard correctly.

The hero turned around in his seat again as to be facing TV screen once more. _Only one more emerald and they'll have all. And a villain with seven emeralds is never a good thing..._ he frowned, worry starting to settle deep inside him. "I hope that at least the last one is stored somewhere safe."

"I have the emerald," Shadow spoke up from his spot by the stove. He doubted that his own house was safer than a safe guarded by twenty GUN squads, but—unlike the GUN—he didn't have any files about this which the Destructix could get their hands onto—plus he also had it hidden.

(No, he won't tell you where.)

( _ Especially _ , because Rouge was present and by the way her ears twitched he was sure she was listening closely.)

Sonic blinked surprisedly. He'd already searched through the entire house—well, except Shadow's room, he respected peoples' privacy—but had not seen it yet.

"I haven't seen it around the house," he said, immediately scanning the room with his eyes to ensure he hadn't missed it on his yesterday tour through the house.

"It wouldn't be in a safe spot if you just bumped into it," Shadow replied, clearly not planning to reveal the location of the Chaos Emerald even to him.

"Don't be so secretive..." Sonic urged the agent, at which Shadow only raised a brow, wearing the typical 'you think that'll make me tell you?' expression.

"Come on! Tell me!" the cobalt hero tried once more, at the moment resembling a child that had just learned there were gifts hidden in the house but couldn't find them no matter how many times they searched.

But the ebony hedgehog just remained silent, not willing to disclose this information despite the other's persuasion.

"Fine, then!" Sonic threw his arms into the air to show his resignation. "If you're not talking to me, then I'm not talking to you either!"

The blue hero then slid back into his seat, arms crossed and gaze turned away from the kitchen.

At which Shadow just shrugged his shoulders and resumed preparing the lunch. After all, he already knew how would Sonic's silent protest end.

The hedgehog wouldn't last  _ even  _ _five_ minutes.

~O~

Sonic lasted exactly three minutes and fifteen seconds before he moved to the kitchen and started to talk again, mostly ranting about how all GUN agents clearly had an obsession with healthy food—however, while one of said agents was able to ignore him, the other (the female one) lost her temper and threw him out of the kitchen.

So, the blue hedgehog had to return to his place on the couch, all the while trying to ignore the quiet snickering of the amused echidna by his side. Letting out an annoyed huff, Sonic returned back to watching the TV, placing his feet atop the small coffee table before him in a silent protest of being treated like this.

The entire house remained without any conversation taking place for several minutes—until the crimson hero decided to break the silent atmosphere.

"I suppose I should keep all of this secret..." Knuckles commented, rubbing his hands awkwardly; it was strange to sit with Sonic like this when he'd thought for many months that the blue hedgehog was a criminal.

"For now." Sonic nodded, gaze still locked on the screen before him.

Knuckles cleared his throat. "Well, I'm...um..."

Raising a curious brow, Sonic turned to look at the suddenly silent echidna. "You are...?"

"Nothing," the guardian said, waving his hand in a sign for Sonic to forget what he'd just said.

But Sonic  ** wouldn't  ** let him out of the conversation so easily. "Come on! What did you want to say?" he asked, nudging his red-furred friend. He was curious about what Knuckles had intended to say.

Realizing he couldn't escape now, the guardian sighed. "...It's great you're back," he said, patting the cobalt hero on the back and slightly surprising him with the action.

Sonic grinned at the sort-of affectionate gesture. "...You've really missed me, haven't you?"

"...Yes, all of us," the guardian admitted aloud after a moment. "You better catch them fast."

"You remember that I'm the fastest thing alive, right?" the hero asked with a grin, happy to move on to less sentimental ground; with Knuckles it was all about fighting and joking around—not emotional conversations.

"Actually, you're not." Sonic turned at the new voice, looking towards the kitchen from where Shadow was gazing at him. "I can outrun you anytime, hedgehog."

With a smirk slipping into a place, the blue hero got up and walked into the kitchen to stand face to face with the other hedgehog, challenge beginning to shine in his green eyes. "Wanna try that theory out right now?"

"I don't believe it would be fair to win against somebody that couldn't even walk a week back," Shadow replied, returning his smirk with one of his own, crimson eyes shining with hidden amusement caused by the hero's bold proclamation.

"I'm  _ absolutely  _ capable of beating you even in this state," Sonic argued, moving to exit from the room, the hero planning to begin a search for his footwear. "Just tell me where you put my shoes and we can race."

"They are in a shoe cabinet, of course."

Once Sonic put on his shoes and a pair of borrowed socks and gloves—because his own didn't manage to survive the encounter with Dr. Eggman's 'hedgehog grilling set'—the two hedgehogs went to prove who was the fastest hedgehog around; and thus left Rouge and Knuckles alone in the house.

Which Rouge immediately decided to take advantage of.

"Tell me, Knuckles—" Amethyst eyes turned to look at her as she exited the kitchen and approached the echidna, the movement of her hips swaying from side to side clearly capturing the attention of the purple orbs. Letting a smile on her face, she laid one knee on the couch, leaning forward to hover over the form of her red-furred husband. "—What would you say about the  _ two of us  _ having some  _ fun  _ time while these two are out?"

"Um..." The echidna looked somehow dumbfounded by her proposition at the moment, at which Rouge raised an amused brow and leaned a bit more closer—which, finally, unknotted the echidna's tongue. "Well...I don't see why not."

~O~

"Are you ready to eat my dust?" Sonic asked as he stretched his legs, the self-assured smirk never leaving his face.

Shadow let out tired sigh. To be honest, he didn't really feel like racing—but he also knew that Sonic would annoy him until he gave in and raced with him; therefore, there was not point in wasting his energy on an argument.

"No smart remarks?" Sonic raised a questioning brow, clearly surprised by him not reacting to his taunt.

Sighing once more, the ebony agent started to lean forward. "Let's get this over with," he said, moving into a starting position.

Sonic copied the other's action, the smirk on his face growing bigger as he shifted into the starting position.

"The first one that gets to the city wins. _All_ is allowed." Green gaze locked itself on the track before them and then Sonic started the countdown, "So...three, two, one-GO!"

They both shot forward, sneakers and skates repeatedly hitting the ground in a fast rhythm as they raced forward. The two were absolutely equal at the start of the race, but in a minute or two Shadow could already see that Sonic was having a problem with keeping up with him—the gap between them was becoming visible, the cobalt hero was beginning to sweat already and he could see how the blue legs often stumbled in the forest terrain.

The ebony agent frowned at this occurrence; they weren't even moving **_that_** fast—they both were capable of much higher speeds.

Shadow gradually slowed down until he stopped completely, the blue hedgehog joining him by his side in mere few seconds.

Forcing his lips into a smirk, Sonic put his hands on his hips, trying to look as if he wasn't struggling with his breath. "What? Tired already?" he asked, attempting to keep his breathing as even as possible.

The dark agent's frown deepened as he continued to study the other's irregular breathing pattern, seeing the fact that Sonic was trying to hide from him. "I should be the one asking that question," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Okaaay—Maybe I'm tired a little." The cobalt hero gave a nervous laugh, rubbing his neck sheepishly.

Shadow sighed, letting his hands fall limp beside his sides. "It seems that your body isn't healed completely."

Sonic nodded as he moved to sit in a shade of a tree, giving a content sigh once sat down. "Just give me a minute and we can continue..." he murmured, eyes slipping shut and looking as if he was about to doze off rather than just rest for the race.

The ebony agent rolled his eyes at this and rested his back against the trunk of the same tree under which the hero was resting. He closed his eyes, taking a moment just to relax and think.

It was no surprise that Sonic was out of breath; the hero had an extremely low amount of chaos energy in his body. Chaos energy was essential if they wanted to run at the speed of sound—their bodies shouldn't be able to withstand such speed, but with chaos energy constantly healing them and being the fuel to their bodies, it was a quite easy task. If Sonic's body spent all its energy on healing itself, of course, he wouldn't be able to race him now.

"Did you hear that?"

Shadow opened his eyes, sending a questioning look to the blue hedgehog on the ground. "Hear what?"

Sonic pointed towards some bush and the agent's dark ears perked up to listen to the sounds echoing through the forest.

"Where are they...?!"

Shadow blinked surprisedly. That voice sounded _very_ familiar...

"Hey, isn't that Vector's voice?" Sonic asked and then tried to peek through the branches of a nearby bush to see if the mysterious person was truly the loud crocodile.

But as he shuffled his feet, his foot stepped on a dry branch and a loud snap echoed through the otherwise silent forest.

"Who's there?!"

Shadow send the hero a disbelieving look, the action soon followed by the agent shoving the confused hedgehog to the side—just in time as the big crocodile walked through the bush a moment later.

The reptile's eyes widened in surprise when he saw the dark agent in one piece and only with minor injuries. "Whoa, Shadow, you're alright! We started to get worried when we haven't heard of you! Have you found the Destructix?"

"Yes, I found them. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to retrieve the Emeralds, but both Rouge and the echidna are safe now," the ebony agent explained in a very loud voice to ensure that the crocodile wouldn't hear the groaning coming from Sonic who had fallen behind some bush.

"What are great news! Just tell us where their are hiding and we can get them arrested immediately!" Vector grinned widely, absolutely unaware of the blue hedgehog a few feet behind him who was now gesturing at Shadow wildly.

"I doubt that. They are clever. They surely didn't return to the lair now when I know where it is," Shadow replied, at the same time trying to decipher Sonic's confusing gestures. Either the hero was asking him why he'd thrown him into the bush, calling—well, gesturing—him names or promising a revenge.

"I guess that's true! But nobody can escape the Chaotix for long! No criminal shall escape the greatest detective on planet, Vector Sherlock the Crocodile!"

"I believed your second name was Arrow," Espio commented, seemingly appearing out of thin air and joining in their conversation.

"Well, it is. But Sherlock is my third name."

"What about Force?"

"I meant a fourth name."

Seeing the two reptiles were distracted, Shadow sneaked a look back to Sonic. What—? Was the blue hedgehog performing some kind of a rain-dance now?

The dark hedgehog tried to subtly gesture to his oblivious blue rival that he needed to get lost— ** _now_ ** ; the Chaotix finding out about him could possibly ruin the planned impersonating-an-imposter mission.

But the chameleon noticed his direction of sight and so the ninja started to turn around—but before he could found out about the blue hero's return for himself, Charmy already did it for him.

Wait a minute, when did Charmy get—?! Argh, never mind...

"You've got some nerve to show here, you criminal!"

Vector also turned around, both reptilians immediately shifting into a battle position when they spotted the blue hero who just stood there like a deer caught in the headlights. Seeing this, the dark agent just rolled his eyes and mouthed, 'run', to which Sonic finally responded by taking off faster than a regular person could blink.

Shadow took off as well, shouting, "I'll catch him!" and leaving all three detectives far behind as he ran after the hero. He stopped only once Sonic stopped—which was about five minutes later, far enough from the Chaotix.

At the very moment they came to stop Sonic sank to the ground, wheezing as he repeatedly filled and emptied his burning lungs, at the same time fighting his nausea and dizziness. "Gah, that was close..."

"Too close..." Shadow remarked, offering the other a helping hand. Sonic grinned as he gripped the gloved hand firmly, using it to spring into the standing position.

Green eyes curiously swept across their surroundings, noticing a familiar lonely house standing on the edge of the forest; they had somehow got back to Shadow's house.

"So..." He turned to his ebony companion. "What do you say about lunch?"

~O~

Rouge, Knuckles, Shadow and Sonic were all sitting at the table, eating lunch.

No conversation was taking place, but the meal was nowhere close to peaceful—as Sonic couldn't miss how Rouge and Knuckles kept on exchanging glances and the smiles they were giving each other. He looked at his ebony rival to ask if he had also noticed the occurrence, but the dark hedgehog seemed to ignore all of them.

Therefore, Sonic tried to return his focus on his food, but it proved to be an impossible task; the non-hedgehogs at the table kept on snickering for no apparent reason.

But it was when Rouge  ** _giggled_ ** that Sonic's nerves snapped.

"What is going on between two of you?"

The couple both raised a questioning brow. "What do you mean?"

"...They're married," Shadow answered casually and resumed on eating his food.

"What?!"


	10. A Knight in a Shining Armor and His Tick

"Knuckles and Rouge are married," Sonic repeated one more time, still accepting the fact that two friends of his had married.

Because Shadow didn't see point in responding, he kept silent and only quietly flipped the page of his book.

"But how is it possible? They both are stubborn, love gems too much and get angry easily!" Sonic exclaimed in tone of utter disbelief—and Shadow once again ignored his outburst and instead flipped the page of his book again. "...Chaos, now when I think about they are actually perfect for each other."

The dark agent flipped the page one more time, finally answering, "Indeed, they are."

"But when did it even happen?" the hero asked, still trying to wrap his head around the whole situation—he hadn't even been _aware_ that the two had started dating.

"About a year ago," Shadow replied. "They got married two months ago," he added as a quick explanation. Sonic was gone when their wedding took place, but it shouldn't be that much of a surprise to the hero; when Knuckles told him about his relationship with Rouge, Sonic had even said they would marry in one year—and just eight months later it truly happened.

However, because Sonic 'forgot' they had been dating in the first place, this reaction wasn't surprising.

"You know what? Tell me everything that has happened in last year." The hero shifted in his seat to sit more upright, facing his ebony companion now. "It seems that a lot of big things have happened..."

Shadow sighed internally.  _ You have no idea... _

"Well, you already know what happened to Eggman..."

~O~

"I don't know this technology so I'll have to run a few tests to figure out how it actually works," Tails replied, looking at the mysterious ring that Rouge had just delivered to him from Shadow from various angles. "However, you don't have any of the equipment I need here; I'll take a look at it once I get home. I could have the results by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Rouge blinked, surprised. "I don't believe Commander will let you go home until you are finished here."

A small smile stretched across Tails' lips. "I just need to pack my things and I can go. I'm not needed here anymore."

To say Rouge was surprised would be an understatement; the last time she came here the young genius still had _tons_ of work to do. "Well, how convenient. I was about to go out and grab some food for the both of us."

"Well, I still have to work on the ring so—" Tails started, clearly planning to excuse himself from another meal with her. Rouge's lips pressed into a frown.

"The ring can wait," she cut in sharply, refusing to let the younger Mobian go another day without a dinner; she had made a promise to Sonic that she wouldn't let Tails get away from his food this time—which was necessary as Tails was _way_ too thin for a kid his age. "But your dinner can't."

~O~

In the end, they ate at a fast food restaurant. It wasn't the best-for-health food choice but Rouge figured it was better than nothing. After the dinner, Tails had declared he wished to go home and Rouge being the responsible adult she was—from time to time—decided it'd be good to accompany him.

The further they walked down the street, the more Rouge seemed to have a problem with shaking off the feeling that somebody was watching them. Therefore, she instead chose to observe the town area inconspicuously, searching with her eyes for something that could explain the heavy feeling in her insides—which, of course, could also be just caused by the strange food she had eaten, but she still decided to keep her guard up in case.

She was actually so focused on looking for anybody remotely suspicious that it took her a whole minute to realize that Tails actually  _ wasn't  _ with her anymore.

Sharply spinning around, she looked for the suddenly absent genius—and then she saw him standing in the middle of the street, staring at a chili dog stand.

It wasn't hard to figure out what he was thinking about.

Sighing, Rouge took a couple of steps back and joined Tails in his gazing at the lonely chili-dog stand and the dispirited feline vendor that inhabited it as he looked over the people that passed him. The people would always hurry when they got too close to his stand, trying to get away from it as soon possible—which was understandable; chili-dogs were Sonic's food. He was the one who made the food popular and now when the cobalt speedster was considered a criminal...

Taking out her wallet, she approached the stand, surprising both the vendor and Tails with the action. The male cat immediately straightened his posture when he saw her approaching, smoothing his uniform briefly before sending a nervous smile her way. "Good evening, Miss. How may I help you today?"

"I'd like one classic chili-dog." She looked over her shoulder at her young companion. "Would you like one as well?"

"I...I..." Tails blinked in surprise, clearly caught of guard by the offer, for a brief moment hesitating with his answer. "...Yeah, I'd like one."

"Two classics, got it." The feline male immediately started to prepare the food, a look of intense concentration on his face as he worked on what was Rouge sure would be two of the best chili dogs of her life; given the situation, the vendor surely had only a few customers per day and therefore he needed to prepare a food good enough it would motivate them to come back.

After two more minutes the vendor held out two perfect-looking chili-dogs, a bright smile on his face as he handed the food to them. "Here you go! I hope you'll find them to your liking!"

Rouge handed one of the chili-dogs to her young companion and then took one herself. She laid the money—plus a _very_ generous tip—on the counter and, with a wink to the feline male, she said, "Keep the change," and turned to leave.

Seeing how big tip she had left, the vendor's voice was full of sincere gratitude when he spoke, "T-thank you! And come again!"

"I will," Rouge smiled, winking again, and turned around fully, taking few long strides to catch up with her young companion who had already resumed walking. Once by the fox kid's side, she took a first bite of her food, sneaking a glance at Tails from the corner of her eye.

The young genius was silently munching on his food, a distant look in his eyes and a small barely visible smile on his face; Rouge doubted he even knew it was there.

But because she was aware what it meant, she only took another bite, letting a smile of her own to show.

~O~

"Amy is abroad?!" Sonic's voice was filled with an equal combination of surprise and joy.

"Yes, she is." The volume of Sonic's voice had actually been so high it earned him a glare from his ebony rival. "But given the fact the pink stalker has to heard you even there —she's probably on her way back already."

"Amy's no stalker, she's just—...uh..." Sonic was now trying to speak more quietly as he'd gotten the hint the other had dropped. "Okay,  _ maybe  _ she  _is_ a stalker, but don't call her that—she's a friend..."

Shadow snorted. "I'm not really sure if you know the definition of the word 'friend', hedgehog. You call it everybody that hasn't tried to kill you—Wait, that's wrong! You call _even_ me a friend."

"That's just how I make friends—just ask Knux or anyone else how they met me," Sonic commented with a laugh and a shrug of shoulders.

"Why actually do you dislike Amy in the first place? She's a nice girl," the blue hero asked, wanting to learn the reason why Shadow and Amy never got along; he knew that at Amy's part it was because she didn't like the way Shadow treated people— _especially_ him—but in Shadow's case the reason was a complete mystery to him.

Like most of the agent's behavior these days.

Shadow made a face at the question. "She sounds like a strangled squirrel, she thinks she knows everything the best and she's the most **_annoying_** person at the face of the planet."

"I clearly remember you saying something similar about me," Sonic pointed out.

The ebony agent just smirked at the remark. "You might be annoying, but believe me...If she wasn't a child and a girl, I surely would have tried to kill her more times than you."

"What a gentleman you are," the cobalt hero deadpanned. "But let's move back on the track—" Sonic waved his hand to emphasize he wanted to move from that topic. "—Is there anything else I should know about? Any other important events?"

Shadow pondered the question for a moment, before shaking his head. "No, that should be all..."

_Not quite._ Sonic shifted in his seat, feeling nervous for a reason he couldn't quite explain. "But what about what happened after Eggman's death?" the hero asked, which earned him only a confused look from the other hedgehog—as _that_ was exactly what they had been talking about for past hour—but the look transformed drastically, when Sonic elaborated a bit more, "you know...um, _between us_..."

Suddenly, Shadow looked very  ** _very_ ** uncomfortable.

~O~

With a strange feeling running up her spine, Rouge watched as Tails walked to his front door, which he unlocked right after, but did not open it just yet; he seemed as if he wanted to say something but wasn't quite sure how to express himself.

"It was...a nice evening," he said in the end.

To which Rouge replied only with a "Yeah, it was," as she wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying but instead was focusing on her hearing; she thought she had heard somebody whisper just moment ago—which was odd as there was nobody around beside the two of them.

(Maybe she was just being paranoid at this point...)

"Well, I guess it's a good-night then," Tails said when he received no further reaction from her. When he didn't receive an answer to that either, he finally opened the door and walked in, the sound of it shutting finally making Rouge snap out of her trance and notice the young kid had already disappeared from her sight.

Realizing what had just happened, she shook her head, wishing it to clear of all the paranoid thoughts. After all, everything was _normal_ , there was nothing to worry—

It was at that moment that a _scream_ echoed through the house.

~O~

Tails felt _absolutely_ exhausted; the day had been long but it had undoubtedly been a _nice_ one—even despite Rouge acting like a worried older sister, nagging him about his eating habits and worrying about his well-being.

It actually kind of reminded him of Sonic.

It was nothing unusual for him to forget about his meals as he was always preoccupied with building something in his workshop. At such times his brother would always come, bring him food and wait until he was finished eating.

(Because if Sonic didn't, he would just forget about the food again.)

...He missed Sonic.

As Tails walked to the stairs, too tired and too preoccupied with his longing thoughts, he failed to notice all the strange shadows of unknown figures that were soundlessly gliding through his house but which were clearly visible on the floor as he hadn't switched on the lights.

Tails stopped in the middle of the hallway, staring in confusion at the broken flowerpot on the ground. It was in pieces and the dirt that had been once inside of it was now littered everywhere. It might have fallen—which would explain the condition of it—but how could something like that happen to something that had always been standing on the ground?

Suddenly, he realized that when he'd passed the living room, he'd seen the coffee table lying on the floor but until now hadn't realized that it wasn't how it was supposed to be positioned.

And now there was a huge shadow under his feet that  _ definitely  _ wasn't his.

He turned around, a scream escaping his small body just as a fist of the stranger collided with his face.

~O~

A loud crash echoed through the house as Rouge used her powerful legs to kick the front door open, the thick wooden block smashing into a wall. The bat stepped into the house, lips pressed in a thin line and eyes locked on the stranger that had dared to enter the heroes' house.

Which was no one else than Scourge the Hedgehog himself—now with hands full of unconscious Tails.

Not hesitating even for a moment, Rouge charged forward, attempting to throw a punch at the hedgehog's face; however, the criminal just smirked and simply made a step aside, his lightning fast instincts making the task of dodging her ridiculously easy for him.

Unable to stop due to the momentum of the action, Rouge could only wait until she hit the ground—but not wanting the other to get away so easily, she beat her left wing, the movement enough to twist her in the air and aim her leg so it would be in a position to collide with Scourge's face.

Unfortunately for her, for Scourge it was another too slow attack so he just bowed down slightly, making her leg pass above his head without even touching it.

The female finished the improvised half-somersault and landed on her high-heel-adorned feet, a short huff of frustration leaving her when she realized how even the second attack the criminal had so easily dodged.

It was like if she was fighting Sonic or Shadow...

Quickly coming up with a plan, she fell to one knee, pretending that she had injured herself by the last attack to get a moment of surprise for the next one. She grabbed a handful of dirt from the broken flowerpot and as she lunged forward, threw it into Scourge's face.

The unsuspecting hedgehog bellowed in pain as the dirt hit his eyes, temporarily blinding him. Rouge used this moment to her advantage and gave a hard kick to the back of the criminal's knees, sending him down to the ground and yanking Tails's unmoving body from his arms.

"You think you can escape me, bitch?!" he growled as he rubbed his eyes to remove the dirt, sending glare towards to her when he finally could see just clearly enough again. "You're not fast enough to do that!"

Rouge tightened her grip on the unconscious body in her hold, trying to determine which escape route she should take. There was the front door—which was currently blocked by Scourge—and then there was a staircase behind her—and given the fact sneaking past the enraged speedster would be impossible for her, it was clear there was only one route she could truly take.

Swiftly turning around, she spread her wings and beat them multiple times in a row to quickly fly up the stairs—but Scourge quickly caught on what she wanted to do and so he zipped up the stairs, giving her a smug smirk when they came face to face.

Shifting her wings so she would fly backwards, Rouge flapped her wings a few times, getting small distance between her and the smirking hedgehog. Believing that like this she had a chance of making it to the front door, she sharply twisted in the air and dove for the exit, flapping her wings as fast as possible—but just then a giant gorilla emerged from behind the corner, blocking her way out.

"No," Rouge breathed as she realized she was moving too fast to stop and that the gorilla was already balling his hand into a fist and turning his body to use his body rotation to enlarge the strength of his already painful punch.

And there was nowhere to turn.

_I'm sorry, Tails..._ was the last thought to pass through her mind before pain surged through her being and she fell into the abyss of unconsciousness.

~O~

"...Nothing happened," Shadow declared as he got up and immediately headed for the door.

But Sonic expected something of the kind and so he dashed towards the door to stop the other from leaving; he was not letting the other get away before he got his answer. "I'm not absolutely ignorant, Shadow. I noticed you're treating me differently—" Shadow grimaced ever so slightly at the remark for some reason."—and I just want to know— _W_ _ hy _ ?"

"You're imagining things," the agent insisted. "Now move out off the way."

The blue hero placed his hands on the inner sides of the door frame, blocking the path even more. "I'm not imagining anything. Why don't you want to tell me?"

"There is nothing to tell you," Shadow insisted, practically hissing the response.

"Oh, really? So, one day, you just woke up and decided 'Hey, I'll stop being a complete jerk to Sonic and start treating him as person!'?!" Sonic asked— _ demanded _ _ — _ feeling the spines on his back rise in anger of being denied answers.

Shadow frowned at this clear sign of hero's indignation. "You were injured—Of course, I wouldn't start fighting you like usual."

Sonic mirrored his rival's expression and made a step closer, now literally face to face with the other. "But why haven't you insulted me? Or humiliated me? Or hurt me in some other non-physical way?!"

With spines starting to rise instinctively as well, the ebony agent scowled even more as he cut the distance between them in a half, leaving barely a feet of space between them. "You're angry at me because I haven't hurt you?" Shadow asked, his expression full of disbelief and anger. "What sort of messed up logic is that?!"

"It's completely logical! The Shadow I know would never miss an opportunity to insult me! To make fun of me! To hurt me even if it was just by words!" The blue hedgehog's voice was getting louder with each word and his spines were already completely raised and reflecting his anger.

For past few weeks nothing had made sense—everything was different than he remembered; and he didn't know why it'd happened. But in this case, Shadow knew the answer and he was  _ refusing  _ to tell him!

"Sweet heavens, what do you want from me?!" Shadow growled, throwing his arms open to emphasize his question. "First, you complain how unfriendly I am, now you're complaining that I am _not_!" Shadow leaned closer, practically hissing his next words, "Make up your damn mind, hedgehog!"

The blue hero had to suppress the frustrated growl that dared to escape his throat; Shadow was avoiding the question! "I'm not complaining! I'm just asking  _ why  _ are you like this?!"

The ebony agent pressed his lips into a thin line, shifting his posture to stand straight once again. "You want an answer?"

Sonic blinked, surprised and caught off guard by the sudden question; he hadn't really expected Shadow would give in so simply. "Well—Of course, I do!" he said in the end, eager to finally get some answers.

But then Shadow snorted as if amused, and that was enough of a sign for Sonic to know he wouldn't like what would come from Shadow's mouth next. And this suspicion was proved correct when Shadow locked their gazes and said, "Then it seems you'll have to remember because I'm  _ not  _ giving you one."

Sonic stared at the other hedgehog for a moment longer, trying to figure out if he might have heard wrong; but when no further explanation came from Shadow, his anger flared up inside him once again, his spines immediately raising themselves again.

And if it wasn't for the front door suddenly bursting open and Rouge running in as if hell hounds were nipping at her heels, the two might have started a very _bloody_ battle.

The bat came to a sharp stop right before the hedgehog duo, her shoulders heaving as she tried to catch her breath and speak at the same time. "Tails's, _gah_ , been kid- _gah_ -napped by—" she started, but paused when she noticed what sort of look was the duo giving her.

"Um...Have I interrupted something?" she asked, switching from looking one to the other repeatedly.

"No, you didn't," Shadow assured her, sending Sonic a look that clearly said that they won't be discussing _that_ topic anymore—but in reality he didn't really had to do it as at the moment Sonic heard the name 'Tails', his attention had immediately turned elsewhere.

"Did you just say that Tails was kidnapped?!"

The other hedgehog also finally realized what exactly Rouge had said, his focus turning to this new event as well. "It was the Destructix, wasn't it?" he asked, receiving a nod a moment later.

Shadow frowned, not happy about this turn of events. The Destructix surely weren't waisting any time...

"Yes, they—they got me by a surprise." The female softly touched her cheek, where—just like on her eye—a horrible bruise was already forming. But, surprisingly, a bag of frozen vegetable was pressed to her face just a moment later, the numbness slowly replacing the dull pain she was feeling in the area. She turned, surprised, to the one that had brought it, blinking in confusion to see the cobalt hero standing there—she hadn't even seen him leave. "Thanks, Sonic."

"You're welcome," came the hero's quick reply, before he turned around to speak to the other male. "We need to get back Tails as fast as possible."

"I don't believe you're in a condition to go with me," Shadow argued.

Sonic frowned. "But he's my friend—"

"I know that—" The agent sighed. "—and I promise I'll  _ give  _ my life to save him if necessary."

Crimson eyes were full of determination, both the statement and the intensity of the other's stare catching Sonic by a surprise. Shadow giving his life to save...Tails?

"The Chaotix have found the new hideout of the Destructix a few days ago, right?" The dark agent was now facing his colleague, his full attention on her.

"Yes, it's another of the doctor's old lairs—it's the one in the Great Forest by the lake. I'll call the Chaotix and Knuckles to go with you."

"I'll be waiting for them there, then." Shadow nodded, already on his way to the door, where he then stopped, sharply turning around. "And, Rouge, look after him—he's _not_ allowed to leave the house."

Then Shadow left into the depths of the night, leaving the duo alone and unattended.

Which Sonic decided had to be used _immediately_.

"Rouge?" he called quietly, continuing to gaze out of the open door through which the ebony agent had left to check Shadow wasn't coming back for some reason and thus wouldn't overhear what he wanted to ask Rouge.

"Yes, Sonic?"

"I need to save Tails," he explained simply.

A short "I know," was the only response that he received from Rouge.

"Will you let me go?" Sonic asked, finally turning to face the female, who suddenly looked very  _ tired _ , an exhausted sigh leaving her a moment later.

"I wouldn't betray Shadow's trust...So, let's say that you sneaked out when I have fainted out of pain." She then walked into the living room and then graciously let herself fall on the couch, exaggeratedly showing in how deep pain she was.

Sonic snickered at the over-the-top show, already putting on his shoes. "Thanks, Rouge."

"Go before I wake up," she replied, keeping her eyes close to keep on the charade.

The hero just let out an amused huff. "Unconscious people don't talk."

"Sleep-talking," she offered as an explanation, briefly opening one turquoise eye to look at him. "Now  _ go _ ."

Luckily, Sonic didn't need to be told twice.

~O~

Shadow frowned as he crouched down in his improvised hiding place, observing the lair and its surroundings intently. He watched as the Destructix entered the abandoned factory, all of them empty-handed while the gorilla carried the still unconscious Tails, neither of the criminals so far aware of his presence.

"So, this is the place?" a familiar voice sounded from behind him, and Shadow didn't even bother to look surprised; he could hear the hero approach from hundred yards away.

"It is."

Sonic soon joined him by his side, seating himself beside him. Both of them were perfectly hidden by the thick bushes from the outer world—which however wasn't that necessary as it was already midnight and the darkness was enough to hide them both.

Once sure the criminals weren't going to come back anytime soon and possibly hear them, Shadow switched on the GUN communicator on his right wrist, Rouge's voice immediately making itself present.

_ "Hey, Shadow, how is it going?" _

"Quite good, bat. I just found out the hideout of the Destructix—and Sonic found me.

There was a silence for a few seconds on the other side of the line and then the bat continued like if she hadn't heard the part about the blue hero.  _ "What a great news! Is anybody inside?" _

"The entire gang has entered the building just now," Shadow replied, still keeping his eyes on the lair's entrance; he couldn't let anybody sneak up on them.

_ "Shoot. We didn't expect the entire gang to be there. I'll tell the others to be prepared for it." _

"Roger," the ebony agent replied, closing the line and after a brief moment of silence turning to the cobalt hero beside him. "I'm surprised you've made it here."

"I ran in a slow pace." Sonic shrugged his shoulders. "Thought, um...Would you mind giving me a ride back?"

Shadow's response came in an instant. "Yes, I would mind that greatly."

"Oh! Come one, Shads!" Sonic called. "I promise I won't annoy you for a next week if you agree!"

"No, I won't give you a ride. You have to learn your lesson," Shadow replied, refusing to let himself to be persuaded.

"Come on, Shaaaadow..." Sonic hugged the dark hedgehog from behind, planning to try a different tactic. "I won't let go off you if you don't agree!"

"You're like a tick," Shadow commented with a huff, but making no real move to remove Sonic from his back; if he truly wanted to get the clingy hero off him, _all_ he needed to do was to raise his spines. However, he didn't wish to do so. Being like this reminded him of times before the Destructix—when he and Sonic were still...

While Shadow lost himself in the memories, the hero kept on his 'hold on like a tick' tactic but when this didn't earn him any other reaction after a whole minute, he just sighed and let go of the dark body, due to his position not noticing the frown that flashed across the dark hedgehog's face when he did so.

"I'm going to search this place," he declared and moved to the edge of the bush, planning to step out of their hiding place but instead stopping in the middle of the motion and turning around. "You aren't even going to try to stop me?"

"There's no point in that." Shadow shrugged his shoulders, knowing how stubborn Sonic could get when he wanted to do something.

"And I had a feeling you care about me," Sonic deadpanned.

To which Shadow responded in very much the same manner. "Yes, I had that too."

"Then why are just sitting here?" the cobalt hero asked, raising his brow at the still sitting hedgehog.

Briefly closing his eyes, Shadow sighed. "What do you want? You want me to be a knight in a shining armor who protects you from monsters?"

"Nah, there's no need for that!" Sonic waved his hand in a dismissing manner. "I already saw you in armor!"

Shadow blinked in confusion at the remark; having no idea what was the other talking about—he'd never worn an armor of any kind. "What?"

Sonic grinned at the other's perplexed expression, a short "See you later, Lancelot!" leaving him before he finally stepped out of the bushes.

Sonic ignored the even more confused "What?!" that left the agent a moment later and instead moved to search the lair for any sort of windows through which he could look inside; he was quite curious about his double as he hadn't really had the opportunity to see him yet.

"How in the name of Chaos did you get here?!" a way too familiar voice demanded, the occurrence making Sonic slowly turn around, throw his arms into the air and loudly exclaim, "Magic!"

For some reason, the Fake Sonic didn't seem amused.


	11. Unexpected Guests

"That's not funny," the imposter remarked with a frown, eyes narrowing. "Now tell me—How the heck did you get back here?"

"Ehm...I walked here?" Sonic guessed, unsure what exactly the other meant by 'here'.

And  _ that  _ was clearly a wrong answer as the look-alike gave an angry growl and began to march over to him. "Stop pretending you don't understand!" the imposter demanded, now practically snarling into his face. "How. Did. You. Get.  _Here_ ?!" he asked, voice dropping in emphasis with each uttered word.

"Chill, dude, I have no idea what you're talking about! You see, my memories are sort of messed up lately..." Sonic replied, wondering how it came that Shadow hadn't heard them yet; they weren't even that far from him.

"What?" the imposter uttered, obviously surprised. "You...don't know who I am?"

"No idea." Sonic shook his head to emphasize his point. "But I would really appreciate if you stopped pretending to be me—You're kinda ruining my reputation," he explained nonchalantly, his relaxed manner sharply changing into a unsettled one when he noticed the wide pleased smirk that was now on his look-alike's face.

Trying not to show how disturbed he felt by the sharp change of his opponent's demeanor, Sonic frowned. "Why so happy?"

However, his criminal twin did not answer the question—only made a small step backwards and, crossing his arms over his chest, smirked a bit wider. "Why should I tell you?"

The blue hero copied the imposter with crossing his arms, green eyes briefly flickering to the ground to see there were only three feet of distance away from each other at the moment. "Because I asked nicely?"

"You can't get everything by asking nicely," the criminal responded, frowning like if he'd just remembered an unpleasant memory. "The world doesn't work that way."

There was a heavy silence before... "But let's get back to the business..." The look-alike shook his head and turned his body towards him once again. "You see, normally I would have offered you a chance to leave without a fight—" Sonic suddenly found himself gasping for air, a knee driven so deeply into his stomach, it made his knees buckle under him and fall to the ground just a moment later. "—but you have already declined that offer once so I guess it's pointless to offer it to you again.

The imposter raised his leg once again—this time aiming for the hero's head—but unlike the first time, Sonic had expected this attack and was able to roll away just in time to avoid it.

Gritting his teeth in pain and covering his abused stomach, the blue hero slowly rose back to his full height, green eyes never leaving his mirror image. "Why are you attacking me?!"

"Isn't it obvious?" his look-alike asked, a blue brow rising in question.

Sonic only copied the action.

Seeing he was not about to receive an answer, the imposter sighed and opened his mouth to explain, "I'm pretending to be you—Therefore, you running around and trying to save the day would not really help my act."

Sonic blinked in confusion.  _ He's already ruined my reputation, why would it matter if—? _

Green eyes expanded as the realization dawned on the cobalt hero.

"The Destructix don't know you are not me!"

The criminal look-alike froze, green eyes opened comically wide as his twin realized what information he'd just let slip. "Damn!" he swore, hands curling tightly into fists as he let his eyes briefly dart to the ground before looking at him once again. "It seems I've got no other choice but to kill you  _ this time _ !"

Sonic blinked surprisedly. "...pardon?"

But the hero did not receive any clarification; instead he had to duck to the side as the imposter had lunged himself at him once more.

~O~

"Hey, Shadow, long time— _hmpfer_!" Vector made a startled noise at the back of his throat when his giant jaws were suddenly slammed orced together, the ebony agent preventing him in this way from making any more noise that could alert the enemy of their presence.

Unfortunately, Vector's incomplete greeting had probably already gave them away.

"Be quiet," the dark hedgehog hissed and then let go of the giant jaws, ignoring the quiet complaint from Vector at such treatment and instead focusing his attention back to gazing at their surroundings in a search for Sonic; that careless idiot had disappeared somewhere behind the lair a few minutes ago and just as he was about to go for him the Chaotix had appeared.

"The entire gang is inside, right?" a much less loud and even voice than Vector's sounded from his side, the agent not even having to take a look to know it belonged to Espio.

"Yes," Shadow replied as he squinted his eyes to better see the outline of a figure that was moving through the woods. "Where is the echidna?"

"Knuckles will be here in a few minutes," Espio responded, gazing in the same direction that the dark hedgehog was looking, but unlike Shadow not spotting the figure as it'd hid behind a tree the moment he'd directed his gaze in its vague direction. "When are the GUN reinforcements coming?"

"They aren't," Shadow said, not having to even look to his side to know the trio was gazing at him in confusion. "What?"

"There was no time to call GUN," he explained, frowning as he saw another movement in the woods. "We need to get the fox kid fast."

"Well, then it's good Mighty is coming!" Charmy announced, at which he received two surprised looks from both reptilians and one confused, accompanied by a frown, from the ebony hedgehog.

"Who's Mighty?"

"That is a former member of Chaotix. It's been years since he left the agency," Espio explained. "However, do not worry about him weighting us down—He's very fast and has an incredible strength. He could give Sonic run for his money back in the day."

Just as Espio finished his small talk, a bush behind them moved and Knuckles plus an armadillo that Shadow had never seen before appeared.

"Mighty!" Charmy shouted, flying over to the armadillo to hug him, the older male laughing heartily when he found himself in the bee's embrace. "Hi, Charmy."

"I missed you so much!" the young bee exclaimed as he let go of him, and thus allowed Mighty to give a brief reunion hug to other Chaotix's members, laughing happily all the while doing so.

"I missed all of you!"

Shadow grimaced at the show full of emotions beside him. "Please, tell me you have already finished your reunion and that we can finally get to the matter at hand."

Mighty blinked in confusion at the unfamiliar voice, curiously turning take a look at Shadow. "You've recruited a new member while I wasn't here?"

The dark agent send him an disinterested look. "Me working with them?  _ Ridiculous _ ."

Mighty raised a brow at the remark, unsure what to think of Shadow. But then Knuckles placed a hand on his shoulder, drawing armadillo's attention with the action. "Shadow is always like that. Don't mind him." Knuckles turned to look towards the lair. "Though it's true that we should focus on the rescue."

"Wait a minute—a rescue?! Nobody told me anything about a rescue!" Mighty exclaimed, surprised—he'd thought they were just going to reveal some smugglers, not going to _rescue_ somebody!

"Tails was kidnapped," Espio explained, the news making Mighty's mood drastically change.

"Tails? _Our_ Tails?! We need to rescue him!"

"Then stop talking and start moving!" Shadow hissed as he finally exited the bush, his dark fur making him practically unnoticeable as he moved through the woods and tried to get to the area where he'd last seen the moving figures.

Knuckles joined him not even a moment later, the echidna well aware for what reason the dark hedgehog had been staring there all this time.

"Sonic's there, right?" the guardian whispered, keeping his voice low so Chaotix wouldn't hear them.

Shadow nodded. "Take them inside. I'll get Sonic. It seems he's ran into trouble—as usually."

The guardian nodded before briskly walking over to the Chaotix and then explaining the plan to them, choosing for everybody through what—door or window—would enter, briefly mentioning Shadow was going through the back entrance to destroy any suspicion the others might have about what he was doing.

The dark hedgehog looked over his shoulder to ensure the others were still focused on the guardian and when he confirmed that yes, they were, he dove into the woods, hoping faker hadn't gotten himself into  _ too  _ deep trouble in the short moment he'd been left alone.

~O~

Muscles trembling and shoulders heaving, Sonic stared at the unconscious body by his feet. The imposter had fought well—he had to give him that. Fortunately, luck was on Sonic's side today—as the cobalt speedster had gotten a lucky hit on his criminal's twin head and had knocked him out.

However, Sonic was sure he never fought this person before; the imposter's fighting style was completely foreign to him.

The criminal was the agile type—the same as him—quick to dodge attacks and very acrobatic in his movements. But, apart from him, the imposter lacked strength in his attacks—while his own attacks were usually combination of various amounts of speed and force, the imposter depended heavily on momentum.

Briefly studying the downed criminal, Sonic nudged the lifeless body. It seemed that the imposter would be totally out for next couple of hours, which left him some time to discuss with Shadow what to do with him—maybe together they would even be able to find a way to convince the imposter to tell them why he was pretending to be him in the first place.

Abandoning the flower field on which they had been fighting, Sonic entered the woods again, planning to return to Shadow—which almost caused him to bump into said agent in the dark forest just a minute later.

Shadow's gaze immediately swept over him, most likely looking for injuries. However, Sonic doubted the agent could see much in the dark.

Once finished with the inspection of his person, Shadow moved his gaze back up, their gazes locking immediately. "What the hell have you been doing back out here all this time?"

"I've sort of ran into the imposter. He's knocked out." Sonic turned to point behind himself, in the vague direction where he believed the field was; there were lots of trees and bushes blocking his vision. "—back there."

Shadow looked contemplatively at the area where he was pointing, before nodding. "Alright then. We'll take care of him after we rescue your friend."

~O~

"Have you found him?" Vector whispered as he peeked out of one of the rooms, his golden eyes gazing at the empty space where he knew his chameleon colleague was hiding—this even being confirmed just a moment later as Espio returned to his usual color and shook his head.

However, both of them had to return to hiding themselves—Vector by vanishing back into the room and Espio by changing the color of his skin to the grayish metal walls around him once again—as Drago appeared from behind the corner, the wolf soon running right past them. Luckily, without noticing either of them.

But they still waited until he disappeared behind the corner before they dared to take a breath again.

—which almost made them metaphorically jump out of their skin when Charmy suddenly appeared from behind the same corner the wolf had just disappeared. "Hey, guys, I found him!"

Exchanging a quick wary glance, both reptilians moved to follow the small bee. They soon arrived into a great hall, where they immediately hid behind a group of nearby barrels that were randomly scattered around the room.

And that was for one reason only—as the frog and the lynx were sitting on the other side of the room and Tails, tied and unconscious, was laying by their feet on the floor.

"Why do we have to be here? All the fun is happening elsewhere!" the frog complained loudly, the comment making his lynx companion huff in agreement.

"Believe me I also would prefer to kick someone's butt than stay here, watching over this kid. It's not like he can _go_ anywhere!"

Vector and Espio exchanged a worried look upon hearing this information. Did it mean Destructix had found Knuckles and Mighty? All of them went to search different parts of the hideout and they didn't have any communicators to talk to each other so they couldn't knew whether this assumption was correct or not.

But there was definitely a _lot_ of noise coming from the other part of the building.

"Maybe we can leave him here?" the frog suggested, the idea bringing a contemplative look to his companion's face. Slowly the lynx looked from one side to the other—most likely to check none of their criminal team members were there to witness how they planned to abandon their job—and then he nodded, a broad smirk appearing on his face.

"I don't see why not. Let's enjoy some fun!"

The Chaotix nodded at each other, waiting until the criminal duo disappeared through a side-door before they approached the unconscious fox. Vector immediately scooped up the young inventor into his arms and, after nodding to his two colleagues again, moved to leave the scene the same way they had entered it.

~O~

With lips pulling into a frown, Sonic swept his gaze across the quiet corridor through which they were traveling. It was odd that they hadn't met anybody yet. There were supposed to be all of Chaotix plus entire Destructix—so it was at least twelve people for them to run into. Given the size of the building, they should have ran into someone already a long time ago.

Which would have happened if Shadow hadn't suddenly pulled him into a nearby room. A lowly hissed 'here,' being the only words that left the agent before Scourge suddenly appeared from behind the corner and rushed past them, cursing loudly all the way.

Surprised, Sonic peeked out of the room, watching Scourge's retreating back before the hedgehog disappeared behind another corner.

"Is there a party taking place that I don't know about?" Sonic asked aloud, blue ears twisting as they listened to the loud noise of ruckus that seemed to be coming from down the hallway. Planning to see for himself what was happening, he made a step out of the room—only to get suddenly tugged back by Shadow again, just in time to not be seen by Dawg, who rushed past them not even few moments afterward.

"You know—With all this dragging me into a private room, it almost seems as if you were trying to keep me all for yourself," the hero joked as he turned to his ebony counterpart—who immediately reacted by leaning _very_ close, locking their gazes and putting on an _inviting_ smirk.

"And what if I am?"

Not expecting this sort of an answer—neither the intense gaze—Sonic only blinked in response, unsure how to react. "Ehm..."

Letting out a short snort of amusement, Shadow leaned back and stood up. He took a few quick strides to the door where he then stopped and looked over his shoulder at his still sitting counterpart. "Aren't you coming?"

"Y-yeah, sure," the hero said, shaking his head briefly as he got up and took a deep breath to calm down his suddenly racing heart. "Let's go."

Shadow waited until he joined him at the door and then the duo exited the room together, heading straight down the hallway to see what was the commotion about.

However, the moment they turned around the corner and set their eyes on the scene, neither of them sure how to exactly react.

"Well, I surely didn't expect **_them_** to be here," the hero commented, gazing at the scene.

Though, to be fair, he didn't think anybody had expected _Babylon Rogues_ to be here.

~O~

"Stupid parrot, _stop_ moving!" Scourge roared as he jumped into the air, missing the hover board of 'the parrot' by few inches again. 'The parrot', who was actually a very familiar hawk of the name Jet, just laughed from his spot far above the ground, raising the two Chaos Emeralds high into the air tauntingly and laughing.

"What's the matter? You want these back or something?!"

However, the taunt only caused Scourge's blood to boil to the point that he sprung upwards, and in a form of a ball crashed into the hawk's hover-board from below, tipping the flying board from balance enough to knock Jet down.

The Babylon Rogue gasped as he suddenly found himself on the ground, with Scourge sneering at him from above, two glowing gems in the criminal's hands. "Got it!"

Jet gasped. "Give them back!" he yelled as he stood up and reached for the Emeralds—only to be forced back to the ground by a kick from Scourge, the green criminal smirking mockingly.

"Not so cocky without your hover-board, are you?"

"Ah, why is it always up to me to correct your mistakes?" a female voice sounded from above and Scourge screamed in surprise as another of Babylon Rogues flew right over his head, snatching both Emeralds from his hands, the culprit—Wave—giving him a grin before stuffing her loot into the bag that was hanging from her shoulder.

Twisting around on her hover-board, Wave looked to the last member of their group, seeing he was being cornered by three other Destructix members. " Storm! Give me the last two!"

Hearing her call, the albatross immediately threw both his Emeralds her way—high into the air. Using the speed of her vehicle, Wave rushed forward, reaching her arm out to catch the first one; but in the end getting roughly pushed aside by Scourge as he had jumped up to catch it as well.

Seeing she had no chance of obtaining this gem, she immediately made sharp 'L'-turn to catch at least the second one. Because Scourge was still in the air and unable to change his direction, there was nobody that could stop her.

Or so she had thought before a flash of blue rushed across her vision and the next thing she saw was a grinning Sonic holding the Emerald.

Gracefully landing onto the ground, Sonic spun around and sent a grin to Shadow, whose sudden urge to face-palm was practically written all over his face.

Not to cause more suspicion—and possibly give away Shadow's concealed position—the cobalt hero sharply twisted back to the main scene and was met with the sight of Scourge half-glaring at him. "Took you long enough!"

"Better late than never!" Sonic yelled back with a grin. At first, he had doubted if the plan would truly work but Scourge clearly wasn't suspecting a thing. All he needed to do now was to pretend to be an imposter, who was pretending to be him.

Which meant that he just had to act like himself...and pretend to work with Destructix.

Scourge sent a one more smirk his way before he turned back to Jet who had managed to get back onto his hover board and was now struggling to escape from Predator Hawk, who, unlike him, was able to fly on his own and thus was able to follow him very easily. Tensing up his muscles, the green criminal waited for the right moment and once the time came, he jumped up and knocked the hawk down, not caring what was going to happen to him.

For a brief moment, Scourge struggled to keep on the board. However, once he steadied himself, he positioned his feet the same way he'd seen the hawk do and immediately turned the hover-board to fly towards Wave.

Planning to shout at Sonic to do the same, Scourge turned around. And was surprised to find the blue hedgehog already on Storm's hover-board, grinning at him. They both nodded before focusing once again on the swallow that tried to escape them. However, once Predator joined the hedgehog duo, it was then end for her. She was knocked from her hover-board and just as she was about to hit the ground, two strong peach arms appeared underneath her, saving her from a painful landing.

"Hey, Wave. Sorry, I don't really have a time to chat but it seems I'll have to borrow your bag—I hope you don't mind." Sonic flashed her his traditional mega-watt smile as he removed the aforementioned bag from her shoulder. However, the swallow barely had the time to say anything before she started to fall again, this time being safely dropped into the arms of a Jet, who had intended to catch her upon the very first time he'd seen her falling.

Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Sonic turned to look over to Scourge, who was now grinning at him, clearly pleased by the development of things.

The look-alike duo soon came to halt as they landed before to the rest of the Destructix gang, all its present members currently holding all of the Babylon Rogues immobile.

Sonic blinked in confusion, not recalling seeing the lynx and the frog anytime during the fight, Scourge clearly realizing this as well just a moment later. "What are you two doing here?! You are supposed to look after Miles!"

"Calm down, Scourgie, it's not like somebody will go and steal him when we aren't there," the frog said, unaware of the Chaotix, which were right now doing **_exactly_** _that_.

"Get back there!  _ Immediately _ _! _ " Scourge shouted, emphasizing the command by pointing in the direction of the room where Tails was supposed to be lying.

"Tsk, you're no fun," Frog muttered with a shake of head, but made a move to head back nonetheless, Lighting joining him a mere moment later.

"Now—what are we going to do with you?" Scourge wondered aloud as he turned to the Babylon Rogues, contemplating deeply what to do with them now; they'd tried to steal the Chaos Emeralds, there was no guarantee they would not try so again.

"...Threw them into a cell, I'll think of something later," he decided in the end, throwing his Chaos Emerald to Sonic at the same time.

The hero quickly stuffed the gem into the bag to the other five, happy to see things were going according to his impromptu plan so far—to convince the Destructix to give him all the Emeralds and then let Shadow steal them. Then he himself would leave the scene to pretend to chase after the agent and then they would chaos control through the building until they found Tails. Then all three of them would teleport away.

He'd came up with the plan at the very moment he saw the scene. He had explained it to Shadow and then he'd immediately rushed into the action, not waiting for answer from the other.

(Which would be that Shadow considered it to be a _very_ stupid plan, by the way.)

"Place them back into the safe," Scourged ordered him, before turning to the rest of his group. "After you throw them into the cell, check if there isn't anybody else in our lair," Scourge commanded, looking thorough the group one more time, seeing that one particular Destructix member was missing. "Where is Simian?"

"It's **_sergeant_** Simian for you," Simian said upon entering the room, both Knuckles and Mighty struggling to free themselves from his iron hold, the movements of their arms restricted even more by the rope that was tightly tied around their wrists. "I found these two wandering around."

"Some friend of yours?" Scourge asked, referring to the armadillo as he was sure that Knuckles was here to rescue Miles. Though, to be honest, he hadn't anticipated that the heroes would find out about the fox's disappearance so fast.

Jet just shrugged his shoulders. "I've never seen the armadillo. But, hi, there, Red-head. Planning to join the bad side like Sonic over there?"

Being once more reminded of the fact that everybody thought he was a villain now, Sonic send a frown the hawk's way. And, unlike the others, Knuckles caught the reaction and, therefore, raised an eye-ridge, perplexed at why would an imposter react this way on such comment.

And just then, he caught a glimpse of Shadow, hiding behind nearby containers and making various hand gestures towards Sonic.

Fortunately for all of them, the echidna got the message and thus let a small smile crawl to his face.

And this smile didn't disappear even when Scourge turned to him, a smirk on the criminal's face. "So you're here together, huh? Don't tell me you're that stupid to think you two can rescue Miles alone..."

The guardian smirked as he met the criminal's gaze. "Should I remind you that it took only Shadow to get me and Rouge out of here?"

"But Shadow isn't here now," Scourge replied, a pleased smirk on his face as he leaned closer to the echidna. "You're  _ alone _ ."

Knuckles laughed at the remark, the action confusing Scourge greatly judging by his sudden change of expression. "Oh, you really need to get better security."

And it was the exact moment that Shadow choose to rush past the group, 'steal' the bag of Chaos Emeralds from Sonic, and—to top it all off—knock down Simian by spin-dashing into him.

Which, unsurprisingly, caused the entire place to fall into chaos once again.

"Shit, not you again!" Scourge shouted and immediately broke into the pursue of the ebony agent, the rest of Destructix letting go of the Babylon Rogues to join him not even a moment later.

The green criminal leapt forward, his hand tightly curling around the strap of the bag and pulling—thus tearing it with the action. Shadow mentally cursed upon seeing this, but did not slow down as the green hedgehog continued to chase after him, leaving the work of collecting the emeralds to the other Destructix.

"Wave! Storm! Get them!" Jet ordered and roughly pushed Predator Hawk out of the way in wrestling-like fashion, getting hold of one of the Emeralds.

Predator cursed upon seeing this and went after another emerald; but was, once again, pushed aside—this time by Storm, who then snatched the gem. But the albatross himself was knocked to the ground by Simian barely a second after, the Chaos Emerald falling from his hand.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Drago had already collected two—just like Wave, who was now gesturing towards her comrades that it was the time to retreat. Seeing the signal, both male Rogues immediately dashed to their hover-boards and jumped onto them.

Unfortunately for them, Scourge had noticed the action and immediately began to chase after them—as getting back the Emeralds was more important to him than getting revenge on the dark hedgehog.

Seeing he was free of pursuers, Shadow immediately used the chance to dash out of the building, hoping the others had already rescued the fox kid; he had a feeling things were about get very ugly very soon.

The ebony agent stopped running only once Knuckles and Mighty got into the view. The duo was accompanied by Chaotix, who to the relief of both him and Sonic—whom he could see nervously gazing at the scene from behind a bush—were carrying the still unconscious Tails, who beside having a dried blood on his temple seemed to be unharmed.

He walked over to the group and looked all of them over. It seemed that none of them was seriously injured—Tails was probably in the worst condition of them all.

"You should take him to a hospital," the dark agent suggested, hoping it would somehow ease Sonic's evident worry about his best friend.

"I'll take him," Knuckles announced and took the small fox from Vector's arms carefully, making sure not to touch the wound on Tails' head.

"Alright! That means we can go and celebrate!" Vector remarked, a broad smile on his face. "And Mighty is paying!"

"Alright! Wait—what?!" Mighty asked as he realized what the now running crocodile had just said. "I haven't agreed to that!" he shouted and broke into a run, chasing after the now-laughing reptilian.

~O~

"We did it!" Sonic cheered, raising his hand in a clear wish to high-five with the other hedgehog. With a sigh, Shadow copied the gesture and clapped their hands together, knowing the other wouldn't let him alone until he received the desired high-five.

Letting a smile stretch across his face and his hand droop back to his side, Sonic turned to gaze from a far at the retreating group. Chaotix were chatting and heading to the nearest bar to celebrate their success while Knuckles walked beside them, carrying the injured fox to the hospital.

"So..." the hero started as he turned back to his ebony companion, red eyes meeting his a moment later. "Do you...still mind giving me a ride?"

For a brief moment, the dark agent seemed to be actually thinking about the question, but then a smirk stretched across his face, short 'Yes, I do,' leaving him, before he zoomed far to the horizon and let the other hedgehog to his fate.

"Oh, come on!" Sonic called, taking a short moment to glare at the distant form of his rival, before sighing and beginning his long way to Shadow's house.

And the knocked-out imposter, back in the woods, remained completely forgotten.


	12. Sleeping Marathon

"You did  ** _what_ ** ?!" Shadow demanded in an angry tone, black spines rising in accordance to his abrupt change of mood.

Sonic immediately raised his hands before him in defense. "I'm sorry! I really didn't do it on purpose!"

However, even his apology didn't seem to be enough to make his ebony rival calm down. "But how can you forgot about something like that?!"

"I have a bad long time memory! Just ask Tails! He'll confirm it!" the blue hero tried to defend himself once more; but his efforts were futile—Shadow was too angry to be calmed down by words at this point.

"Do you have any idea what chance you have just missed?!" Shadow questioned, eyes wide and burning as they stared into his own. "The imposter is a key to proving you're innocent!"

"...Well, he wasn't really willing to talk back in the forest," Sonic replied after letting himself briefly replay the earlier conversation with his double in his mind, "so, you most likely wouldn't get any information out of him..."

"Oh, believe me, I would have made him talk..." Shadow replied, cracking his knuckles audibly at the end of his speech, his expression unreadable as he did so. The display immediately send a chill down Sonic's spine as he knew the other was dead serious and willing to take upon himself this task...

And this knowledge unsettled him greatly.

However, this unnerving gesture was forgotten a mere second later as the blue hero suddenly realized that _this_ wasn't completely his fault; he had told Shadow about the imposter, after all. "And anyway, this isn't only _my_ fault—I told you about him! You forgot as well!"

Shadow frowned, not liking how the other tried to make this his fault. "I haven't seen him. You just came and said: 'I ran into the imposter. He's unconscious somewhere in the forest.' How was I supposed to remember something like that?"

"First of all, I said: 'He's knocked out—back there,'" the cobalt hero started and even made the same gesture as in the forest, both the correction and gesture earning him a raised brow from the other.

"What were you saying about having a bad memory?"

Sonic blinked and then grimaced.  _ Oh, come on! How it comes he always gets me? _

Realizing he had very much just lost the argument, the cobalt hero sighed. "Alright, it's my fault. I admit it. Are you happy now?" he asked, opening his arms to emphasize his question.

Shadow blinked surprisedly; he hadn't expected the hero to give up so easily, it was so...unusual of him. "...Not particularly. Next time at least tie him to a tree...or something."

"With what? Shoe laces?" Sonic asked, gesturing wildly to his shoes. "Look at my shoes! I don't even have those!"

The dark agent sighed. Was Sonic trying to start another fight? He was too tired for that. "Be creative. I don't care how you do it as long as you do it."

It was the blue hero's turn to be surprised. Shadow was letting go such a chance to start another argument? Was he feeling sick? Or tired? He surely looked tired—very tired. "You alright, Shads? You don't look very well..."

"I'm alright. It's nothing a good sleep can't fix," the other replied, briefly covering his mouth as he suppressed a yawn. "However, because the imposter escaping is not something we could fix right now, I'm going to take my leave now. Don't wake me up unless something significant happens."

Sonic gazed at the form of the worn out hedgehog until he disappeared into his room and the door clicked shut. Though, to be honest, Sonic wasn't even surprised the other was tired—It was only two days ago that Shadow had had to fight Destructix at GUN Headquarters, then he'd had to rescue Rouge and Knuckles and today he'd helped to save Tails. The agent didn't even have time to regenerate from one battle and already had to join another.

Curious about the time, the cobalt hero looked over to the clock that was hanging on the wall. It was already three in the morning, which explained the drowsy feeling that was settling over him. However, despite feeling like he really needed to go to bed, he didn't really want to...as he didn't really feel like sleeping in a cold bed alone.

Don't take it wrong, Sonic was used to sleeping alone. But he had never shared a bed with anybody before. Well, unless you counted the last summer trip with Amy and Tails—which he did not—during which he, due to hotel staff members messing up their order, was forced to sleep in the same bed as Amy—who then held him in her inescapable embrace all night long—which resulted in no sleep for him and quite bad bruise under his rib cage.

He had never even shared a bed with Tails because of the younger having a nightmare when the fox kid was smaller. Tails had even in such a situation insisted on sleeping alone—which the inventor explained as that he would be unable to sleep due to Sonic snoring in his sleep, but the speedster was well aware that his brother was only trying to appear strong in his eyes.

So, the true experience of sharing a bed, which actually involved sleeping—and not a pain-filled night **_without_** sleeping—came with Shadow. And the hero had to admit that it felt nice to have somebody beside him while he slept. The warmth and presence of somebody else, it was somehow...calming—it made him feel safe enough to honestly relax and stop caring about someone suddenly ambushing him at least for a moment.

The blue hero would have laughed if it wouldn't make his situation even more ridiculous. If any of his friends knew what he was thinking right know, they would have thought that he had gone crazy.

_ I think sharing bed with Shadow is nice _ _,_ he thought, grinning.  _ I'm officially spending too much time with him. _

Sonic shook his head to clear it of all these ridiculous thoughts and then he headed for the bathroom, planning to take shower before he headed for his own bed and finally went to sleep.

However, when he was falling asleep—barely twenty minutes later—he had to admit to himself that his bed felt somehow empty without the other hedgehog by his side.

~O~

It was not until the sun was already high in the sky that Sonic got up and, with a yawn, climbed down the stairs. He did not even have to look at the clock to know it was _long_ past noon, which still didn't mean that he was not surprised when he realized how many hours it must have been since he had went to sleep.

Clearly, he had been much more tired than he had thought.

Upon entering the kitchen, the cobalt hero immediately searched the cabinets for food. Once he found an acceptable meal, he took it and began to eat in silence, letting his eyes wander around the room and his mind with it.

The house was even more quiet than usually. Was Shadow still sleeping?

Once finished with his meal, Sonic got up and headed upstairs, knocking on the door of his host's room when he reached it. "Hey, Shadow, are you in there?" he asked and then took a moment to wait for response—which did not sound—and so the blue hero silently opened the door and peeked into the room.

Because of the closed curtains, the room was partly shrouded in darkness, but it was still not dark enough for him to be unable to see the striped hedgehog lying on the bed, the dark form completely unmoving.

Sonic could not resist snickering at the sight. "Haven't you said something about _not needing_ much sleep?"

But, of course, he received no answer.

Leaning against the door frame, Sonic let go of the door handle and instead leisurely crossed his arms over his chest. "So, the ultimate life form isn't so ultimate, hmm?"

Silence.

"You know, maybe we could actually be quite good friends. I'm here for two minutes already and you haven't screamed at me yet."

Not a word from the other.

"But you would have to sleep all the time so there surely wouldn't be any opportunities to get to know each other better."

This time there was not a single sound from the other as the dark hedgehog wasn't even _breathing_ now. However, Sonic didn't notice the warning sign.

"Though, if you happen to be a sleeptalker, then it probably—Gah!" The rest of Sonic's sentence was cut off with a yelp, the hero not expecting the pillow that had just collided with his face. The hero blinked as the pillow slipped down his face and fell to the floor, allowing him to gaze at Shadow once again, the agent now awake and _glaring_ at him.

"I hope you have some serious reason to bother me. If you don't...prepare your last words," the dark hedgehog announced in the most serious of tones, looking very intimidating despite his disheveled head-fur.

But because Sonic had the habit of laughing the danger in the face, he just grinned and replied, "Nah, I was just bored."

And he even literally started to laugh a moment later, the hero rushing from the door and down the stairs before the growling hedgehog, who had just jumped out of his bed, could catch him. Once on the ground floor, he made a sharp turn and ran into the living room, the angry hedgehog already at his heels. He circled the couch and made a move to run out of the room the same way he had entered.

However, instead of that, he was send flying—as Shadow had not bothered to run around the couch and had just outstretched his leg to make him trip over it.

Successfully.

Briefly surprised by the other pulling such a trick, the hero just laid on the ground for a moment. But after realizing his disadvantageous position, he immediately tried to get up—but he was pushed back to the ground by the other before he could even right himself, his arms suddenly above his head and firmly held by the dark hedgehog, who was now kneeling over him, keeping him in place with his own body weight and looking down on him with a smirk on his face.

Sonic gulped nervously upon seeing this exact expression, knowing it could not meant anything good for him.

"So, you are bored...?'" the dark agent asked as he leaned more over him, his smirk widening gradually. "Let  ** me  ** entertain you, then."

And, suddenly, the cobalt hero found one of Shadow's hands on his side, _tickling_ him.

Sonic had no idea how the other knew he was ticklish—or how did Shadow know that his most sensitive area were his sides—but he surely had no time to wonder about either of those as an involuntary laugh erupted from his throat, his body beginning to writhe in laugher in which it twisted for a whole half a minute before he managed to get a meaningful word out.

"Chaos! _Haha_ _—_ " Sides hurting from all the forced laughs, the hero squirmed and bucked underneath the other to get away—but without much success. " _Hahaha_ _—_ Please, enough, Shad! _Ha_ _—_ I can't breath!"

Luckily for him, Shadow deemed the punishment enough and thus stopped his torment him, a smirk of satisfaction spreading across the agent's tan muzzle as he got up and looked down at him. "Well, I hope this have entertained you enough, hedgehog—as I am returning to bed and I'd like my sleep to be _without_ any interruptions this time."

With these words and last glance to him, Shadow walked away, leaving him lying on the ground as he worked on getting his breathing back under control.

Once that his lungs weren't any longer in the risk of exploding due too much laughter, Sonic let a small grin grace his lips—and even let a light chuckle escape him at the extraordinary situation that had just occurred.

It was the first time he'd witnessed Shadow's playful side—and even though the experience was _absolutely_ weird and unusual...

He kinda looked forward to seeing _more_ of it.

~O~

"So...How's Tails doing?" Sonic asked, trying to not let his tone show how anxious he actually felt about the answer.

_"He's still sleeping but doctors said that beside having a minor headache for next few days, he'll be okay,"_ Knuckles replied on the other side of the line—which in the real world was right beside the young fox's bed as he could hear Rouge talking to the still unconscious genius in the background.

Sonic let out a relieved sigh. "I'm glad to hear that..." he murmured. He himself couldn't come and check on Tails himself as doing so could cause his friend trouble—a visit from a supposed criminal surely wouldn't come unnoticed. "If anythings changes, inform me."

_ "Sure. Talk to you later, Sonic." _

"Bye, Knuckles," he replied as he hung up the call, placing the mobile phone back on the table from which he had taken it. The phone was actually Shadow's private phone and because Knuckles currently had Rouge's, it was safe for him to call the guardian—as nobody would even think about inquiring about why two colleagues were calling each other.

Frowning, Sonic turned to look at the closed door of Shadow's room. It was already late in the evening but the dark agent was still sleeping. It was already a day and half since the tickle incident but Shadow had woken up only once since then—and that was barely for five minutes. In this small break, Sonic had asked him if he could use his phone to which the dark agent just mumbled something that vaguely sounded like 'yes' and afterwards went back to bed—and that was about six hours ago.

The hero honestly couldn't decide whether he should start worrying or not; though he was ninety-nine percent sure sleeping this much wasn't healthy for anybody—even Ultimate Life forms.

Therefore, he took Shadow's phone again and dialed Rouge's number, hoping Knuckles was still somewhere around her so he could ask her about it—she knew Shadow better than anybody.

And, to his joy, this exact bat's voice sounded from the other side of the line barely five rings later.  _ " _ _ Oh, hello, Shadow. How unusual of you to call me _ _ — _ _ " _

"Sorry, Rouge. Sonic here," the hero cut in. "I need to ask you something."

_"Sure thing, hon, go on,"_ the bat replied, not sounding even remotely surprised by him being on the line; Knuckled had probably told her.

"It's about Shadow, I'm kinda starting to get worried about him—You see, he's been sleeping for entire two days now. Is it normal for him?"

The female on the other side of the line laughed. _"I'll have to disappoint you, even though I work with Shadow, I don't really know that much about him. But the thing with sleeping—It sometimes happens to him when he's overworked. Usually, it takes him two or three days to recover—Though, him sleeping through an_ ** _ **entire**_** _week is not unheard of either."_

"Oh, so, that's how it is," Sonic murmured quietly. "I guess I shouldn't try to wake him up then?"

_ "If you want to keep all your limbs, then no _ _ — _ _ No, you shouldn't,"  _ Rouge responded with a small chuckle.

"Anyway, thanks for the help," the cobalt hero replied, nodding.

_ "You're welcome. But, please, don't call us for next hour. We'll be... _ ** _busy_ ** _." _

Sonic grimaced. "Eh, TMI, Rouge, TMI."

_ "No need to be so prude, Big Blue,"  _ Rouge teased him, her grin able to be felt even through the phone.  _ "I guess I'll see you later then." _

"Yeah, see you later, Rouge," Sonic replied, hanging up the phone and then placing it on the table once again. Then he headed to the living room and once there sat down on the couch, massaging his head with closed eyes.  _ Ugh _ _,_ _ I won't get that image out of my head for  _ ** _**days** _ ** _... _

Seeing his technique wasn't working, he slowly opened his eyes and, upon seeing the TV remote, he took it and switched on the TV, hoping it would help him forget the image that Rouge had put in his head.

However, this was not necessary—as the moment his head touched the armrest, he slipped into a dreamless sleep.

~O~

Somehow, finding Shadow sitting at the kitchen table and sipping his morning coffee the next morning was both very surprising and at the same time not at all.

"Good morning," Shadow greeted him.

"Morning," he greeted him back.

After obtaining the sandwich that he had prepared himself the day prior from the fridge, Sonic joined the other at the table and after taking a bite of his sandwich, the hero grinned at Shadow.

"So, how are ya feeling, sleeping beauty?"

And unlike many times before, Shadow did not glare at him—the agent only gave him a blank look, sarcasm dripping from his words. "How  _ original _ , faker."

"Oh, come on! I can't even poke fun at you now? You were sleeping for entire three days!" the hero replied, giving emphasis on the 'three days' part.

"Says someone who was out for a month..." the dark hedgehog commented quietly, taking another sip of his coffee.

"Whatever." Sonic shrug his shoulders in dismissive manner. "But, now, seriously...Do you feel okay? Or should I expect another sleeping marathon?" the cobalt hero asked, taking another bite of his sandwich.

"I feel alright. Has anything interesting happened when I was out?" Shadow replied, pointedly ignoring the second question.

"Well, yeah. You missed my wedding," Sonic announced, both his tone and expression completely serious.

This announcement however made Shadow literally start to choke on his coffee. He hit his chest to force the liquid down his throat and after that happened, he was able to yell only one word.

"What?!"

Sonic tried not to laugh upon seeing the utterly surprised expression on Shadow's face. "Yeah, it was really amazing. Pretty flowers, nice music and Amy was beautiful in her wedding dress..."

"..."

"...You know I'm just joking, right?" he asked after one long moment of no reaction from the ebony agent, not understanding why Shadow hadn't said anything and why he was staring at him with such a surprised expression on his face.

But instead of giving him an answer, Shadow only continued to gaze at him silently and then, without any warning, he stood up and threw his still half-full mug at the wall. And then, without any word to him, the agent left the kitchen, his steps loud and filled with anger.

Green eyes, wide and full of shock, traveled to the shards of the broken mug lying on the floor and then slowly up the brown coffee mark which now decorated the formerly white wall. _What the—?_ _Why on Mobius had Shadow just thrown his mug at the wall?_

A bit hesitantly, Sonic rose from his seat and followed the other into the living room, where Shadow was now standing by a window, gaze turned to the outside world, both of his hands tightly gripping the window sill.

"Oh, come on! My joke wasn't that bad. Why would you throw a mug on a wall like that?" Sonic asked, crossing his arms over his chest in mild displeasure; the other's mood swings were really starting to bug him.

However, the other kept silent once again, the only thing to be heard being the quiet cracking of the windowsill as he continued to apply pressure onto it, the wood beginning to bend out of shape.

"Seriously, Shads, this is getting ridiculous! Why won't you answer any questions that I have?" the hero asked as he uncrossed his arms, slowly approaching the other.

But Shadow did not answer even _this_ question.

Sonic frowned at the continued silent treatment.  _ He only acts like this when we are talking about  _ ** _**that** _ ** _. _ _ Could it be related somehow? _

The hero stopped beside the ebony agent, voice steady as he spoke, "...What has happened between us?"

The ebony agent visibly stiffened at the inquiry—which was the only thing Sonic needed to see to know his question had hit the spot.

Slowly turning around, Shadow let go of the window sill. He was wearing an expression devoid of emotion and even his tone was devoid of them when he spoke—but Sonic could see the rage hidden in the red eyes when the agent let out an answer.

"Your amnesia happened."

However, the answer did not explain anything. Shadow knew what he meant by the question and was obviously trying to avoid answering it.

"You know I mean before that," the blue hero replied, receiving only a disinterested 'hmph' in response.

"I won't stop asking until you give me a serious answer," Sonic warned him, determined to do exactly as he'd said—his patience might be short but his persistence was not. "However long that might be."

But Shadow clearly did not take his warning seriously, as he only snorted in disregard.

"You can be as stubborn as you want but I still won't tell you anything."

It was a silent declaration of war. However, Sonic did not know that he just wouldn't be able to win it no matter how much he would try.

Because, apart from him, Shadow just couldn't afford to lose.


	13. Quirks

Because Sonic wasn't somebody who would take back his word he kept on asking—which led to a lot of very harsh verbal fights that _never_ solved anything.

For this exact reason, Shadow was doing all he could to spend as little time with the other as possible; he had even returned to work and had asked the Commander for extra missions.

However, the Commander was not somebody that would forgive easily—as he had already proved during the Black Arms invasion—and, unfortunately for Shadow, the Commander was also a master of deduction; it had not taken him long to figure out his agent was trying to avoid something. Therefore, once Shadow returned from his first mission, he had stated that he had no other missions—to indirectly make Shadow face this unknown matter as a sort of revenge for his disobedience.

(Or that was at least what Shadow believed to be the case as the Commander had not really said anything to him beside to wait until he called him into work once a new mission was available—which Shadow knew was definitely some kind of maneuver as there were _always_ missions available—stupid ones, but missions nonetheless.)

Therefore, the dark hedgehog had no excuse to get away from the blue hero. Not even meeting an acquaintance would be an acceptable excuse as Sonic was well aware he was incredibly anti-social and that the only person that he talked to on regular basis was Rouge—who was currently who-knows-where with her husband, and thus could not be visited.

Of course, he could always search for the Destructix; but he was sure that if he brought up the idea, Sonic would insist on coming along. Therefore, he scratched this plan immediately.

Another option was that he could simply _pretend_ being somewhere on a mission. But with the Destructix running around, he couldn't help but worry about Sonic possibly getting into a trouble with them while he was gone; the cobalt hero just had natural talent of getting himself into these kind of predicaments.

In other scenarios, Sonic could also run into a different kind of trouble—like being seen by public and then get chased by GUN.

...or disappearing without a trace like the last time.

Shadow still vividly remembered the panic that had consumed him when that happened. It was not unusual for the cobalt hero to disappear for few days—being a hero sometimes caused that—but he had never been gone for more than five days. Therefore, the agent had allowed himself to begin to worry only once the sixth day passed without any signs of Sonic; but this mild light worry morphed into a full-blown panic the moment Tails came to him to ask for a help with searching for the blue hero.

The fox kid confessed that he had secretly put a tracking device into Sonic's shoes sometime ago but also that despite this he had been unable to locate him—and the young genius made sure that the device would work anywhere and under _any_ circumstances—even if Sonic was in _another_ _solar system_.

Therefore, they agreed to contact all Sonic's friends and asked them to search for him—which all of them immediately did.

But despite all of these efforts, Sonic had been un-locatable; there was not a single clue where the hero could be. They had to _wait_ for him to return home on his own—which, unfortunately, was not in the same state in which he had left.

Sonic was living in a different point of his life than Shadow was. The memories that they had lived through were missing from Sonic's mind; the hero was living in the  _ past _ .

And the problem was that Shadow kept forgetting about it.

And Sonic had noticed it; the hero was able to point out the changes in his behavior—the changes he'll surely have to seriously explain sometime in the future.

But that did not meant Shadow was not determined to avoid this moment for as long as possible.

However, the more time he spend with the blue hero, the more was his walls that kept the blue hedgehog away were crumbling. It was just a question of time until he'll snap and make the mistake...until he'll say the truth.

But once the mistake is made, there is no going back—If Sonic doesn't remember before that happens, Shadow might lose him once and for all.

And losing Sonic was something Shadow never wanted to experience again.

~O~

Neither did Sonic want to lose Shadow. The hero was well aware that they both were acting like little kids, fighting over _nothing_ all this time. Up to this point—well, if he didn't count last three days—they were able to work out quite alright even without him knowing the super secret reason. Sure, there were few arguments here and there but that simply belonged to their relationship—the day that they stop arguing will be the day the world will end.

That was why he didn't like their current situation in the slightest; it was destroying the fragile friendship that had began to develop between them, his constant questioning only forcing Shadow to run away all the time.

He actually felt quite sorry for Amy now—the current situation felt almost the same as between him and her; except, this time,  _ he  _ was the person from which was the other running away.

And he  _ definitely  _ didn't like it at all.

(Though, to be honest, he was really surprised how persistent Shadow was; he'd never expected that anybody could equal him in persistence.)

But neither of them was the type of a person who would give up—but apart from Shadow, who always fought until the end and never accepted any sort peace offerings, Sonic had no problem with accepting or _offering_ them.

However, Sonic also knew that Shadow would never even think about the _possibility_ of bringing peace between them and thus he was left with only one option.

**_He_** had to be the one that will make it happen.

~O~

It were already three days since the never-ending marathon of asking started.

But to Shadow it was clear that both of them were getting exhausted by the constant arguing—as it had already been an hour since he'd returned home and Sonic hadn't asked him a single question yet.

Though the speedster surely looked like he wanted to say something—this _something_ surprising Shadow greatly when Sonic finally spoke—because what the hero said wasn't a question but a simple statement.

"This won't get us anywhere."

"...I already told you that," Shadow replied after a brief pause, closing the book that he had been reading all this time and then laying it onto the coffee table.

From his place on the couch, Sonic sighed. "I'm sure you have some reason for refusing to tell me—and even though I cannot figure out what it is—It surely is not something worth losing a friend over."

The dark agent blinked surprisedly; he hadn't really expected Sonic to give up this soon.

" _But_ this doesn't mean I don't plan on finding out what the reason is."

_ So, he is not giving up,  _ Shadow noted internally, gazing at the hero who was now avoiding his gaze, one gloved hand rubbing the back of his blue neck.

"What I am trying to say is that I won't ask you anymore—but only if you promise me something."

Shadow surely didn't like where this was going but he still decided to ask, "And this something is...?"

Green eyes finally moved to meet his. "If I won't get my memories fixed in three months, you have to tell me  _ everything _ ."

Shadow frowned at the proposition; he hated being cornered. But at the same time, Sonic was offering a peace and the other alternative didn't look as promising—this one was at least giving him three months to think of a plan...

"So, what do you say?" Sonic asked, shifting a bit in his seat when the agent continued to remain silent, not saying anything.

Shadow took a moment longer to mull the idea over in his head before delivering his decision.

"I agree to your conditions."

~O~

Thanks to the agreement between them, the amount of verbal fights fell down to a minimum—which meant that they argued only about once a day and usually about some small unimportant things anytime they had a feeling that they haven't fought in a while. (Because, hey, they _needed_ to keep their weekly quota of arguments, no exceptions.)

Shadow was spending a significantly more time at the house and even returned to his routine of refusing to go to work when the Commander would call. They were getting along quite alright and the ebony agent had also became willing to answer some of Sonic's tiny questions—like about the photo album that he had found few days ago (Sonic honestly didn't even remember how their conversation had turned to that topic but he was kind of glad it did,) and even though Shadow only told him some sketchy information about it; like where and when various photos were taken—but never why they had been there in the first place—it still was better getting some information that none.

However, this event clearly made Shadow more cautious of what he left lying around—as no matter how much Sonic searched he never saw the photo album again, proving Shadow was determined to keep him from possibly figuring out what was the super secret reason on his own.

Sonic huffed, annoyed; he just hated the idea of having to wait for entire three months.

Especially, when Shadow's behavior continued to turn stranger and _stranger._

~O~

You see, every relationship between two people is unique.

Of course, every relationship can be somehow described—with words like 'romantic', 'friendly', 'hateful' and so on. But there are those little things that make each relationship so  _ unique _ . It can be the way the two treat each other, inside jokes or even tiny quirks the two have...

In his and Sonic's relationship all of these three things were present. The inside jokes were usually related to their adventures—most of the time, unsurprisingly, supplied by Sonic. As for the the way they treated each other, Sonic had already noticed that he didn't really treat him in an unfriendly manner anymore and had started to treat him in a _very_ friendly manner—but Shadow really had to watch his actions so he wouldn't accidentally slip into the romantic kind.

Which leads us to the quirks.

They both had their own little quirk. In Sonic's case it was something what he called 'a hug therapy'. Simply said, the hero would hug him anytime he judged he was in a bad mood and wouldn't let go of him until he considered it to be enough—because of which, he would always call Sonic a tick any time he hugged him.

His own quirk was that anytime the blue hedgehog was rambling about something for too long, he would just kiss Sonic to silence him. It always distracted the other hedgehog and most of the time the hero wouldn't even remember what he was talking about before the kiss.

(He sometimes had a feeling that Sonic rambled just for this exact reason.)

This quirk was something that was causing him the biggest trouble of all of his habits. The blue hero was the talkative type of person—because of which he sometimes wondered how it came that people believed women talk more than men. This hedgehog was proving otherwise—and thus he often found himself just about to kiss the other.

Luckily for him, so far he was always able to catch himself just in time. He also began with trying to get more space between him and the Sonic so he would have more time to catch himself; however, because Sonic seemed to _love_ ignoring his personal space, this part was usually hard to do.

Until now Sonic hadn't asked him about this quirk. Anytime it happened—aka when he leaned suspiciously close—Sonic would just blink surprisedly, waiting for him to explain why he was suddenly so close. But instead of answering, he would aways just pretend like nothing had happened and just wordlessly leave the scene.

But, unfortunately, it seemed that today just wasn't his day.

"What are you trying to do?" Sonic asked and Shadow suddenly found himself staring into the green eyes of the other once more, their faces too close for it to be socially acceptable for a casual conversation. The dark agent began to lean back, planning to, once again, just walk away. But the moment he tried to move away, he felt Sonic's hand gripping his wrist, the cobalt hedgehog not looking like he planned to let him go anytime soon, green eyes intense and his grip firm.

However, when he remained silent, the emerald orbs lost some of their intensity and Sonic let out a heavy sigh. "I know you have a reason for not answering my questions. But, please, can you answer at least this one?"

Shadow felt torn about what to do. He desperately wanted to keep silent, but the look that the other was giving him, the way Sonic had said 'please' and the way the blue ears were folded ever so slightly, were making emotions stir inside him—He could already feel the words trying to escape his throat—

_I need a distraction,_ he realized, his mind racing thousand miles per hour to come up with an idea. Normally, he would kiss the other—but that was exactly what he was trying to avoid. Therefore, there was only one way to go about this...

"I'm not trying to do anything. What gave you the impression?" he asked, making a tiny step closer—to which the blue hero unconsciously responded by making a step away. Shadow let a smirk stretch across his face. "...Is the great hero afraid of physical contact possibly?"

"M-Me? Afraid? Don't be absurd!" Sonic replied with a forced laugh, the stutter at the beginning of his sentence letting Shadow know his plan was working; and thus the ebony agent made another step to reduce the distance between them, letting his smirk stretch wider as a part of his show.

"Then why are you trying to get  ** _away_ ** _?_ "

"I can't hear you properly when you're so close," the blue hero replied, making another unconscious step back—as well as finally letting go of his arm.

"Well, if you say so," Shadow commented with an amused smirk that meant to serve as sign he did not believe the other's claim in the slightest.

"Well, not everybody has an _Ultimate_ hearing, you know," Sonic retorted, crossing his arms over his chest, a small frown settling on his lips.

"That is true," Shadow began, pleased that he'd managed to steer the conversation in the direction he wanted. "Not everybody can be perfect—"

~O~

But despite his success of getting away, this time, Shadow was sure that the next time he wouldn't—next time he would have to answer.

However...he had no idea how _close_ that day was.


	14. Bad Decisions

Rouge gazed at the house before her, thinking about how peaceful place it must be on an ordinary day. When she had been here only a few days ago, it was really dark and her attention was drawn elsewhere, but now—now she finally could admire the beauty of the house. It was far from the daily racket of the city, a sole building at the edge of a forest, its elevated position at the edge of a cliff allowing it to overlook the crystal blue sea and its untouched-by-man sandy beaches which were barely a hundred yards away.

The building itself was very simple—it had only two floors plus a small garage, which, however, was not used for a car but as Tails' workshop—to which she was actually heading.

Rouge sighed as she began to walk towards the house. It had already been five days since the last encounter with Destructix and even though nothing remotely suspicious happened in these five days, she still couldn't fight off the feeling that somebody was about to ambush her every second of the day.

Taking the key hidden underneath the flower-pot that stood by the door, she stepped to the door and unlocked it. Then, after returning the key to its previous place, she entered the house and immediately headed for the garage, where she could hear Tails was currently working; Tails had been sent back home from the hospital three days ago but only now she managed to find the time to visit him.

The sight that greeted her upon her entering of the workshop was the one of the young genius switching from looking at various diagrams on his laptop to the ring that she had given him to analyze a few days ago and then back to the diagrams, a look of intense concentration on his face.

"Hey, hon," she greeted him as she walked over to him, her teal eyes never leaving the golden ring that was now floating few inches above the surface of the table while at the same time emitting a soft yellow light. "Have you managed to figure out what this is?

"Hi, Rouge." Tails turned his gaze from the computer screen to her and nodded. "And to answer your question— _maybe_. I believe it could be some kind of a substitute for a Chaos Emerald. The ring is capable of holding a great amount of chaos energy but unlike an Emerald it's not able to recharge at its own—however, in comparison to the Emerald it has one advantage. It can be used even by somebody that cannot control chaos energy!"

Rouge raised an eye-ridge, surprised. "Really? How did you discover that?"

Tails scratched his head, laughing nervously. "Well, it was purely by accident. Cream and Ms. Vanilla came for a visit and when Cream saw the ring, she began to play with it. She was talking about how she's going on a holiday and that she was looking forward to going there. And suddenly the ring activated and on the other side of the portal was a beach..."

"I see..."

"Would you like to try it for yourself?" the fox genius asked excitedly, gripping the floating ring and then offering to her so she could check out its powers herself.

However, Rouge only gazed at the ring, not really wanting to risk messing around with something that they still didn't know much about. "I...I don't really feel like it. Sorry, hon."

Tails gazed at her for a moment, a little surprised by her declining such offer, but then he just shrugged his shoulders. "Okay, then—at least, I won't have to charge it again. But tell me..." He laid the ring back on the table. "Where exactly did you find this? It's really advanced technology so..."

"Destructix lost it when they kidnapped me," the bat answered casually; however, that still didn't stop from the unaware scientist's eyes from going wide.

"You were kidnapped?!" he repeated, obviously not aware of this event. "When?!"

"A week ago," Rouge shrugged her shoulders as if it wasn't a big deal, which in her eyes it wasn't—she hadn't even get hurt during it. "But Shadow managed to rescue me in a couple of hours so Destructix didn't even have the time to do anything."

"I'm glad nothing happened to you," Tails confessed, letting out a relieved sigh and smiling. "I don't want to lose another friend."

"We both," Rouge replied, realizing she should steer the conversation to some other topic—it was clear who Tails was talking about. "Anyway, what do you say about going to visit Knuckles with me? It's quite long fly there so you giving me a ride with the Tornado would be greatly appreciated," Rouge offered as she really needed to check up on her husband, who had decided to return back to Angel Island to see the damage that had been caused by the island falling into the waters; she had a feeling he will need some comforting.

And, luckily for her, Tails eagerly nodded. "Yeah, that sounds like great idea!"

~O~

"Where the hell is it?!" Shadow growled as he looked into the wardrobe again—and then under his bed—and then searched the _entire_ room one more time. He was sure he had hidden the Chaos Emerald into a box under some winter clothing—which definitely wasn't the safest place but who in the name of Chaos would try to search for it in box that was stuffed with old clothes?!

Then it occurred to him.  _ Rouge. It surely was Rouge.  _ He should never have admitted that he had it in his house! Growling, he grabbed his cell-phone and started to dial his teammate's number, already striding over to the door, planning to get his Chaos Emerald back from the sneaky thief.

_"Hello, there, Shadow,"_ the bat said, her voice cheerful. _"May I ask why_ _—_ _"_

"Where is it, bat?" he cut in before she could finish her question, receiving only confused _"Excuse me?"_ for his question.

"The Emerald, bat—I know you took it. _Where_ is it?" Shadow demanded once again. However, Rouge still did not deliver the desired answer.

_ "I didn't take anything." _

"Rouge..." Shadow hissed, his tone clearly saying that he was not in the mood to play the usual 'ask me fifty times and I'll admit it' game with her—and the female obviously sensed this.

_ "It really wasn't me. I swear!" _

"Then who was it if not you?" Shadow asked, still not fully convinced that she was innocent.

_ "How should I know?!"  _ she asked, clearly angry about firstly being accused about stealing the legendary gem and then being talked to as if it was her fault the Emerald was missing.  _ "Ask Sonic! He's the one that's at your house all the time..." _

The ebony agent halted in his track, his free hand hovering just above the handle of the door.

Sonic.

He hadn't seen him anywhere around the house since morning.

And the Emerald was missing.

And the blue hedgehog hadn't told him anything about going anywhere.

Neither had he left a note.

The blue hero _always_ told him when he was going somewhere.

_ "Shadow, you still there?" _

"..." This couldn't be happening.

_ "Shadow?" _

"..." Rouge was right about Sonic...

_ "Shadow!" _

"..." He had been tricked.

_ "Shadow, answer me!" _

The line disconnected.

~O~

Many miles away, on the stairs of the Master Emerald's altar that was currently devoid of the great gem, Sonic suddenly could feel himself getting sick with apprehension, the feeling curling unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach.

"Ugh..." the cobalt hero muttered inarticulately, drawing his red-furred friend's attention with the sound, the guarding slipping from his trance-like state and opening his eyes to gaze at him from the top of the altar.

"What's the matter?" the guardian asked, his amethyst eyes observing the other Mobian intently.

"I suddenly feel extremely bad for some reason," the other hero replied, curling his arm protectively around his mid-section, the feeling of foreboding unpleasantly heavy in his stomach.  _ Where the heck did it even come from...? _

"Your instinct has probably just realized in what deep trouble you'll be once Shadow finds out you took his Emerald," Knuckles replied with huff, receiving a shook of the head from the cobalt hero a moment later.

"That can't be it. He always just punches me and then takes the Emerald back..."

"Maybe he's planning a revenge for once," the guardian suggested before closing his eyes again and resuming with his previous task—meditating to calm his mind down.

However, this was not an easy task with such a noisy hedgehog for a friend as Sonic. "Still feeling guilty?" the hero asked, at which Knuckles didn't even bother to open his eyes; Sonic had come mostly so he could bother him but when the hero had noticed how much was the Destructix stealing the Master Emerald troubling him, he'd began with instead trying to distract him from thinking about it—which unfortunately wasn't working.

"Just let me meditate—that _will_ calm me down," Knuckles huffed, sounding a bit annoyed at constantly being interrupted. "You should try it sometime as well."

Sonic laughed. "Not my style," he replied as he lay down on the step's edge, falling silent just as Knuckles once again started focusing on his meditation.

Sonic sighed.  _ I don't think it would make the bad feeling in my gut go away, anyway... _

~O~

Crimson eyes, glassy and unfocused, gazed at the horrible mess that their owner had caused; the couch was flipped over and torn, there was a hole in the wall, the coffee-table was missing two legs and flower-pots shattered into pieces were scattered all across the ground. However, the owner of those crimson eyes didn't seem to even care that his living room had been turned to ruins.

_ It was an imposter, after all...  _ he thought, clenching his fists painfully at the thought how horribly he had failed.

Why hadn't he seen it coming?! Something had always felt _off_ about this Sonic!

But despite the tremendous amount of rage—mostly on himself—coursing through his body, the dark agent could feel how it gradually started to leave his body and instead another feeling started to crawl its way into the spotlight.

_ I was so sure it was him...but...it wasn't him... _

Dark fists unclenched and Shadow let himself collapse to the ground and into the depths of despair.

~O~

"—and does the GUN already have some kind of plan how to get the Master Emerald back?" Tails asked the bat beside him as they made their way through the thick vegetation of the Angel Island, Rouge leading the way as she was more familiar with the terrain thanks to her much more frequent visits to the flying isle.

"Not yet. And even if they had one, it wouldn't be much of use," the female agent replied, brushing couple of branches out of their way.

Tails raised a brow questioningly. "Huh? Why not?"

"It's clear GUN is being sabotaged. With the resources the GUN currently have we should be able to find all Destructix's lairs in no time—and yet that is not happening."

"...Do you think Destructix have some kind of agent in the ranks of GUN?" the young genius asked, receiving a resolute nod.

"Definitely. However, I don't know their identity yet—they definitely know how to keep a low profile."

"Be careful—They might try to hurt you if they have a feeling you know about their double spying," Tails warned her despite knowing that Rouge didn't need to be told so—she was doing this job for years already, after all. However, reminding her surely wouldn't hurt, right?

And Rouge didn't chide him for lecturing her; she only gave him a small smile and a promise, "I will."

It was at the same moment that they finally exited the forest and the altar of the Master Emerald become visible. With lips pulling into a full smile, Rouge took in the sight of her husband sitting atop the altar, this being the first time she had seen him this relaxed since they'd been rescued from Destructix; however, the smile froze on her face the moment she noticed that Knuckles _wasn't_ the only person present at the altar.

And the surprised gasp from the kid beside her told her that she wasn't the only one. With mind racing and mouth voicelessly uttering all kind of curses, she gazed at the scene for a moment longer—and then she did the first thing that came to her mind, knowing it was necessary to keep Sonic's return a secret—even from Tails.

"Watch out!" she shouted, at which both of the lounging males snapped their eyes open, Sonic barely managing roll of the way as she lunged at him.

"What the—Rouge?!" the blue hero exclaimed in confusion, barely avoiding the bat's next charge. "Why are you attacking me?!"

"Play with me, idiot," Rouge hissed quietly so only he could hear, the bat sneaking a quick glance at Tails as explanation before diving in for another attack. "Don't think I'll just let you sneak up on my husband!"

Even though it was a fake fight Sonic could already feel the familiar rush of adrenaline shooting through his veins, making his heart quicken its pace as he rolled to the side, a big grin spreading across his features. "You have to be faster for that, bat!"

"And you need to talk less, sugar!" Rouge replied while delivering a powerful kick to the other's chest, sending him rolling into the thick forest with the action. Not wanting to waste time—and give the other two chance to participate—she rushed after him, leaving confused Knuckles and surprised Tails to stare at their retreating backs as she 'forced' the cobalt speedster deeper into the forest and out of their sight.

However, exactly this made Tails snap from his trance and with a shout of "We have to help her!" he ran after them, Knuckles following the young kid more out of habit than anything else—he was still trying to wrap his head around the confusing situation. Because of which he almost bumped into Tails when the young genius abruptly stopped, confused by the fighting pair' sudden disappearance.

Said pair was sitting in a crown of one tree, the female checking they weren't watched while the male was trying to catch his breath.

"Heck, Rouge, you have one hell of a kick! You knocked the breath out of me!"

"Sorry, about that," she turned to him. "However..." The female suddenly punched his arm, which almost caused the other to fall from the branch as he had not expected to be attacked again.

" _Ouch!_ What was that for?!"

"For being careless! What if he had seen you?!" the bat hissed, keeping her voice low and hoping it was quiet enough to not be heard by Tails.

Sonic blinked in confusion. "But Tails wouldn't tell anybody..."

"You cannot know that. It could be by accident. And it could cause a _lot_ of trouble," the bat explained, peeking at the duo from between the branches, seeing that the two were walking back to the Master Emerald.

"By the way, you should return back to Shadow's house. He has already noticed you 'borrowed' his emerald."

"Is he mad?" Sonic asked, wondering how painful would the revenge of his ebony rival be this time.

"He was—for a moment. But then he turned unusually silent and hung up without another word..."

"...Oh," the hero mouthed. This meant that Shadow was extremely angry; Shadow never calmed down quickly—it usually took five minutes of screaming for that to happen—which meant that Shadow had passed the shouting stage and was now in the quiet 'secretly plotting his murder' stage. "Well, you better get back to Knuckles—he surely has got no idea what is happening."

"Will do." She nodded, spreading her wings and then soaring into the air. "See you later!"

As the bat flew away, the cobalt hero took the Chaos Emerald out of his quills, turning the gem briefly in his hand. He suddenly had inexplicable bad feeling about what he was about to do.

But, he muttered the words 'Chaos Control' nonetheless.

~O~

He had expected to see a mad Shadow.

He had expected to be punched at the very moment he appeared in the house.

He had even expected to be called horrible names.

But what he was seeing now was something he would have **_never_** expected to see in his entire life.

Shadow was _crying_.

"Shadow?" he asked softly, wondering what possibly could have happened that the ebony agent was in tears—he hadn't believed that even the end of the world could do so.

Hearing his call, Shadow's head immediately snapped up, the hedgehog clearly caught of guard by his sudden appearance. Which was even confirmed when the crimson eyes went wide upon seeing him, Shadow clearly surprised by who was standing before him.

Crimson eyes continued to stare, wide and disbelieving, at him. For a brief moment they even darted to the Chaos Emerald that he still held in his right hand, but then they came back up to his face, their gaze steady. But then they suddenly filled with emotional whirlwind; Shadow quickly dried his tears with the back of his hand and abruptly stood up a looked him right into the eye with the angriest expression that Sonic had ever seen on his face.

"...Shadow?" he tried, for which he received an intense glare that made him unconsciously make a step back—to which the other hedgehog responded by making a step forward. The blue hero attempted once more to get some space between him and the other hedgehog by making yet another step back—and he suddenly found himself pressed against the wall and barely a moment later Shadow slammed both of his hands on the same wall, one on each side of his head, preventing him from escape.

Sonic honestly wondered how could somebody that had been crying just a second ago look so _intimidating_ right the next one.

Crimson eyes bore into his, the anger that Shadow felt clearly visible in them "What the fuck do you think you were doing?!" the agent asked with a growl at which Sonic's ears instinctively flattened themselves against his head.

"Um...Visiting Knuckles?" he tried, knowing it wouldn't calm the other down—but bad excuse still better than no excuse, right?

_Wrong_ —as it only served to make the other even angrier. "And you just decided to take my Emerald without telling me you are going somewhere?!"

"I...I hoped you wouldn't notice..." Sonic confessed and then regretted it immediately.

"Yeah, I surely wouldn't have noticed that the seventh Emerald disappeared along with a blue hedgehog that Rouge had tried to convince me could be the  _ imposter _ !"

"But I'm not—"

"Shut it! I know it! You wouldn't come back if you were!" Shadow retorted, a hint of another emotion appearing beside the rage that still dominated his eyes. "But why? Why cannot you think before you _act_ _for once_?!"

"Hey, I think about what I do—I just didn't think I needed to tell you about making a quick visit to Knuckles!" Sonic was confused. Why was Shadow lashing out at him because of this?! "—and it's not like I got hurt or anything! So why does this bother you this much in the first place?!"

"Because..." Shadow looked to the ground, avoiding his gaze—even his quills had lowered themselves and the agent suddenly looked like a _freaking_ kicked _puppy_. How was he even doing that?! "I lost you once...and when I thought I lost you for the second time..."

"Lost me?" Sonic repeated, even more confused. "I don't think I understand..."

Shadow snorted. "Heh...Of course, you don't. You don't remember, after all..." The ebony hedgehog briefly hung his head, sighing. "You see, how you asked me what had changed between us...a year ago..."

Red eyes looked up and locked with his again. "Everything did."

Fingers brushed over Sonic's lower jaw, gripping his chin softly. "You see, you and I..." Shadow began while leaning in, making the hero's breathing hitch as Sonic realized what was the other hedgehog about to do.

And as expected, Shadow had kissed him just a second later.

However, even thought the blue hedgehog knew this would come, he had no idea how he should react. He could feel confusion, surprise and shock all mixing inside him. One side of him was telling him to push the other away and run away as fast as possible. The other side—the stronger one, however, wanted to stay and enjoy the moment.

Because the kiss was...soft. Almost like if it was just a wind caressing his lips—an yet it fell more powerful than anything Sonic had ever experienced. It made his heart quicken its pace, his body turn warm and gave a rise to this strange fluttering sensation in his gut.

It felt  _ so  _ nice...

But just then his rational side finally returned to him, demanding of him to push the other hedgehog away—but before he could do so, the kiss had already ended. He was sure it hadn't lasted even five seconds, but it still had felt like eternity.

And then Shadow finally finished his sentence.

"...became lovers."


	15. After Holoska

As he blinked back into the present moment, Sonic felt the other's hand being removed from his chin, the agent making a small step back, now only gazing at him silently without making any kind of physical contact. However, Sonic still remained motionless, his mind still trying to process what had just happened.

Shadow had kissed him...he had kissed him because they were...

It was at that moment, that the agent's words fully sunk in and the realization dawned on him. He leaned for a support on the still flipped-over couch and then even sat on it, his eyes never leaving the dark hedgehog's face.

"What..." he breathed, having no idea what he should say; he was so confused. He tried to search the other's expression for some kind of clue what he should say—but Shadow was only confusing him more. It was apparent that the agent was trying to keep a stone expression, but despite his efforts Sonic still could see many emotions flash across the other's face.

Regret and anger.

Sadness and hope.

However, seeing those emotions did not help anyhow his currently lost state. He and Shadow were supposed to be... _lovers_? But how was that possible? How could he _not_ remember having a romantic relationship with somebody?!

_ How?!!! _

"...How...?" he breathed, his confused mind not supplying any other word beside this—the greatest—one.

"How did it happen?" Shadow asked, to which Sonic only nodded; speaking was too complicated at the moment. Shadow sighed and sat on the opposite end of the flipped couch, clearly not wanting to make him uncomfortable by being too close after  _ that  _ occurring.

"Well, where to start...?" The agent seemed to ponder the question before taking a deep breath and... "When Doctor died, you suddenly found yourself with a lot of free time on your hands and so you decided to spend it by bothering me all day long..."

~O~

_ **The days passed and each day you came to ask me to race you.** _

_ "Hey, Shadow, wanna race me?" _

_ "Hey, Shads, what about race?" _

_ "Hey, Stripes, race maybe?" _

_ **But after a week I was fed up with you bothering me.** _

_ "Hey _ _ — _ _ " _

_ "I swear to Chaos, faker, if you ask that question one more time, I'll cut out your tongue!" _

_ "So no race?" _

_ "Argh!" _

_ **But you continued on bothering me. You didn't want to race anymore but still insisted on spending time with me.** _

_ "So, what are you reading, Shads?" _

_ "Something that's too complicated for you to comprehend." _

_ "Hey! I'm actually quite smart! Give me that book!" _

_ "If you insist..." _

_ "...What the heck is a 'fermion'?" _

-o-

_ "Hi, Shads! Do you want to go on lunch with me? I'm paying!" _

_ "I rather starve than eat with you." _

_ "Hey, that wasn't nice!" _

_ "It wasn't supposed to be." _

_ "You're mean!" _

_ "...It took you this long to notice?" _

_-o-_

_ "Hey, Shads, knock knock!" _

_ "..." _

_ "You're supposed to say 'Who's there?'" _

_ "Why? I already know the answer. A _ ** _big blue idiot_ ** _." _

_ **But for some reason, even thought I treated you this way, you kept on coming back.** _

_ "Hey, Stripes _ _ — _ _!" _

_ "Sweat chaos! You again?!" _

_ "...I take that as that you're not happy to see me." _

_ "No, I'm not. Just get lost already!" _

_ "Geez, Shads, no need to be so unfriendly! I just came to say 'hi'." _

_ "Alright, then. Hi. Now get lost." _

_ "I can't. You obviously need me here." _

_ "What on Earth gave you that idea?" _

_ "Your mood. You obviously need somebody to cheer you up!" _

_"Tell a joke, hug me or do anything else to cheer me up and I_ ** _ **swear**_** _I'll travel to the past and prevent you from being born."_

_ **After a month I decided to ignore you.** _

_ "Hello, Shadow." _

_ "..." _

_ "How are you doing?" _

_ "..." _

_ "Are you ignoring me?" _

_ "..." _

_ "Ignoring me won't get you anywhere." _

_ "..." _

_ "I can do this all day." _

_ **After another month of your never-ending presence I decided that I would try a different approach.** _

_ "Hi, Shads!" _

_ "Hello, Sonic. It's lovely to see you today!" _

_ "...Who are you and what did you do to Shadow?" _

_ **But even that didn't scare you away.** _

_ "Guess who's here!" _

_ "Sonic the Hedgehog." _

_ "Hey! No need to be rude—Wait, you didn't insult me..." _

_ "I don't really feel in the mood to do so today." _

_ "I knew I'd break your shell eventually!" _

_ "Stop dreaming. Tomorrow is going to be normal again." _

_ **However, it wasn't. I didn't really want to insult you anymore.** _

_ "Ehm, Shadow?" _

_ "...You're unusually spiky today." _

_ "I sort of fell into a cactus field on my way here...Mind giving me a helping hand getting these out? Ouch!" _

_ "Get over here." _

_ "Thanks." _

_ "..." _

_ "You're unusually nice today." _

_ "Yeah, I've noticed too. I'm probably getting sick..." _

_ **And I indeed was. But it wasn't a normal sickness, but a love-sickness...** _

_ "Why are you giving me that look?" _

_ "I'm not giving you any look, faker." _

_ "You were staring at me." _

_ "I was not." _

_ "You were!" _

_ "You're imagining things." _

_ "Says you." _

_ **Once I realized this fact, I wasn't really sure how to work with it. Thus I decided that the best approach would be to ignore my feelings. However...** _

_ "Something is bothering you, isn't it?" _

_ "Nothing is bothering me." _

_ "Come on, Shads! You can tell me, I'll help you with anything!" _

_ "You can't help me with this." _

_ "How can you know?" _

_ "It's not something you go and tell random people." _

_ "I'm not a random person. I'm Sonic! You're friend!" _

_ "..." _

_ "Please, Shadow, I want to help you!" _

_ "..." _

_ "What if I told you something personal as well?" _

_ "Even then I wouldn't tell you." _

_ "And what if I told you a secret?" _

_ "Hedgehog, I won't share my problems with you." _

_ "Well, you obviously can't solve it on your own, so give me a chance!" _

_ "Just go away." _

_ "No, I won't." _

_ "Hedgehog..." _

_ "I won't." _

_ "Dammit, Sonic, just get lost!" _

_ "I won't go anywhere, until you tell me what is your problem!" _

_ "Alright then! YOU are my problem!" _

_ "...I am your problem?" _

_ "Yes. Now get lost!" _

_ "But...why am  _ ** _**I** _ ** _ your problem? Do I ramble too much? Is it my sense of humor? Or is it—?!" _

_ "Your smile." _

_ "My...smile?" _

_ "And your optimism, the braveness, the cheerfulness. Just everything about you!" _

_ "I cannot see what is wrong with that." _

_ "And that's the problem." _

_ "...I honestly have no idea what are you trying to say, Shads." _

_ "You just had to be so fucking perfect to make me love you, didn't you?" _

_ "Excuse me?!" _

_ "You still don't get it?...My problem is that...I love you." _

_ "...Shads, you're terrible at joking..." _

_ "You don't believe me? Then I'll hope you'll believe this." _

_ **Then I kissed you to prove I was serious, then you turned red and then...** _

~O~

"...you ran away."

Sonic stared at the other in confusion. Why would he run away like that? He had to deal with love confessions from Amy almost every day. Why would Shadow's confession be any different?

_Because when somebody like Shadow says something like this, you know they are deadly serious,_ a little voice at the back of his mind explained, supplying the reason he had been looking for. Shadow was not a person that would show emotions often—well, beside a few negative ones—so hearing him say something like this...

Sonic looked to Shadow, who was patiently waiting for him to process things, blood-red eyes studying him quietly.

The hero shifted in his seat. "...Why did I run away?"

Strangely, Shadow suddenly looked a lot more relaxed after the question being uttered. _He's probably expected me to start throwing things or something..._ Sonic pondered, finally realizing what was the reason behind Shadow's secretiveness; the agent had been afraid of his reaction.

_ Well, I can imagine that telling someone 'You don't remember it but we are in a romantic relationship,' can be incredibly difficult. _

The dark agent took a deep breath. "Well, when I asked you, you have told me that you were confused. You thought that I was just messing with you because of the way I'd used to treat you—You were afraid that if you admitted that you felt the same, I would just laugh into your face or use that information to humiliate you."

"What changed my mind?" the cobalt hero asked, frowning—his past self definitely had a lot of good points.

"Well, it seems that _I_ did. Because you haven't really responded anyhow to my confession—and also kept on avoiding me—I figured out that you didn't think my confession was a joke. And because of your interaction with Rose I already knew how you act when you're not interested; which surely wasn't the case."

"Thus when we finally met again—which was at Rouge's party—I tried to talk to you. But you would always ensure that there was somebody nearby with whom you could strike conversation as an excuse to being busy and thus not having the time to speak with me. When you kept on doing this for an hour, I decided to simply drag you from the party to somewhere quiet where we could talk—which wasn't hard as you've gotten so drunk you couldn't even stand properly anymore and were saying utter nonsense for the most part. So after announcing that I'm taking you home, I dragged you back to your house. And after waiting for a couple of hours until you were a sober enough to have a conversation, we talked..."

~O~

** _**After a bit of persuasion you admitted that you had feelings for me too and then we talked what we were going to do from then on...** _ **

_ "I don't want to talk to you about this, Shadow." _

_ "Why not?" _

_ "I just don't want to." _

_ "But I want to speak about it." _

_ "But I don't! Go home!" _

_ "You remember that it was you who got us into this situation, right?" _

_ "...I shouldn't have asked." _

_ "No, you shouldn't have." _

_"Alright, what_ ** _ **exactly**_** _do you want to talk about?"_

_ "I want to know your answer." _

_ "My answer? Why should I answer anyhow?" _

_ "Because if you won't I'll beat it out of you." _

_ "Shadow, you won't woo anybody if you'll talk to them this way." _

_ "Well, then it's good I'm not trying to woo you." _

_ "And I thought that was the topic of our conversation." _

_ "No, the topic is your answer to my confession and I want a honest one. Don't even try to lie, you're horrible at it." _

_ "Hey! I'm amazing at everything I do!" _

_ "...You won't avoid saying it." _

_ "Whatever! Well, then! My answer is...eh..." _

_ "Hmm?" _

_ "...Do I really have to say it?" _

_ "I won't go until I hear it." _

_ "Alright...I-I lo-love you too." _

_ "..." _

_ "Shadow?" _

_ "To be honest, I'm not sure how to react." _

_ "What?! I have just opened my heart to you! What do you think you're supposed to do?!" _

_ An awkward kiss. _

_ "Alright, um...it seems we are both horrible at this...Want to try again?" _

_ "Eagerly." _

_ "Okay, then—Three, two, one—" _

_ "I love you." _

_ A kiss. _

~O~

"...Then we had a short talk about what we would do. We decided to keep our relationship a secret until we determined if it has any future," Shadow finished, looking back up at Sonic as his gaze had dropped to the ground when he had been trying to remember the details of the story.

"So, nobody even knew about us being a...couple?" the hero asked slowly, still trying to wrap his head around the situation.

Shadow shook his head. "No, they did not. At one point we considered announcing it but you resolutely decided against it in the end."

"Well, lots of people hate gays—and the press surely wouldn't let us live in peace..." Sonic pondered aloud, knowing that with both of them being a well-known people, that after announcing such news it would be even harder to keep their privacy—plus they'd have to deal with the opposers of gay relationships...

"You actually weren't really afraid of the reaction of the public that much. You were worried about the reaction of your friends," the agent explained for which Sonic send him a confused look.

"Of my friends? Why?"

"Well, at the start of our relationship you tried to talk with your brother about love, relationships and all the things surrounding it—You were secretly trying to find out what he thinks about gays which didn't end really well..."

"What happened?" Sonic asked, wondering what possibly could have happened; Tails was really open minded most of the time.

"From what you told me it was something along the lines of 'Gays are just weird. Liking the same gender? That just doesn't make any sense!'..." Shadow explained, letting the pitch of his voice raise a bit higher while mimicking the other's voice.

"That doesn't sound _that_ bad," Sonic replied, wondering why would this stop him from revealing he was in a relationship with another male. It weren't really encouraging words but it wasn't _exactly_ bad.

"You were crying when you told me that, so I might have heard you wrong."

"I was...crying?" Sonic asked in disbelief, shocked and perplexed. Why would he cry over something like this?

"Yes. It took you almost two days to start to talk to Tails again," Shadow explained, the hero's lack of distress over the 'news' confirming his long-time suspicion—what the blue hero had told him months ago had been either a big lie or a _giant_ euphemism.

"...How...How long have been together?" the hero asked after a small pause, wondering why he couldn't recall anything of what Shadow was telling him—as it was obviously a truth; there were photos of them together, Rouge had confirmed that they had stopped fighting and all the remaining gaps were filled with the information that Shadow was giving him...

But why on Mobius couldn't he remember it?

"We have been together for six months already when you disappeared."

"...Were we happy?" Sonic continued, curious—It was really hard to imagine him and Shadow as a couple. They were _so_ different...

"Most of the time," Shadow replied. "Of course, we fought once in a while but it never was over anything serious."

An uneasy silence stretched over the room as Sonic couldn't think of anything else to ask but Shadow still waited for him to react somehow, the universal 'say something' shine in his eyes. However, there was only one thing that Sonic could say.

"...I'm sorry but I really don't recall any of this."

From the way Shadow's shoulders slumped, Sonic could easily tell that the ebony agent had hoped for a different answer. However, Shadow did not let his disappointment show in his tone. "...Maybe it will come with time."

"Maybe," the hero parroted, feeling bad for having to tell Shadow this. It was obvious how much the other had hoped that he would remember something—even something insignificant and tiny. But he did not—his mind was completely blank.

"It's late—we both probably should head to bed already," the dark agent remarked as he stood up, his gaze briefly darting over to the window where the night had already concealed everything under its dark cloak.

"Yeah, we should. Good idea," Sonic responded somehow un-enthusiastically as he stood up and trailed after the other, both of them soon finding themselves in their own beds and a dreamless night before them.


	16. A Child's Advice

Scourge frowned as he gazed at the two Emeralds that were lying on the table before him, silently mocking him that he was unable to get all six; Babylon Rogues had stolen the other four and, unfortunately for him, up to this point his gang was unable to find where the thieves were hiding.

That was also the reason why he was currently the only one person in the base; everybody else was out searching for the Babylon Rogues—well, expect Sonic to whom he had assigned the task of searching for the seventh Emerald. He had a feeling some of the 'good guys' had that one. But which one, he wasn't sure.

_ Probably Stripes, that guy just loves to ruin my plans. _

Scourge frowned at the memory of the ebony agent. He wasn't really sure what to think of the dark hedgehog. Of course, he had a little idea what to expect from the agent thanks to his interaction with the Prime Shadow, but this alter ego of him was just...weird. He remembered Prime Shadow to be really unfriendly and violent, but this guy—this guy had taken these traits to a _whole_ new level.

This Shadow was at least ten time worse than his Prime self; he wasn't just unfriendly—he was incredibly hostile and ruthless when dealing with the entire gang—even to Sonic, which had surprised him. Sonic had told him that the two didn't like each other very much but that there never was real hostility between them. Of course, this sudden hostility could be explained by Sonic choosing to join them—villains—but such a fast change in attitude seemed very strange to him even in this case.

_ And most of the time he looks like he wants to murder me. _

Not just kill him. But murder him. In the _worst_ way possible.

He had noticed this slight difference between this Shadow and his Prime self at the first time they had met. It had been just some time after he and the rest of Destructix had arrived to this world—which was already months ago but he still could remember it with the utmost clarity. They had attempted to steal the first Emerald from one of GUN's bases—which was practically an impossible task as the literally had no idea what the base looked like on the inside. He actually even got lost for a few minutes in the base—and that was how he had met this world's Shadow.

At that time the ebony agent hadn't even said anything, he had just attacked him. Shadow even managed to get a punch on his face; because of which he lost one of his teeth—which surprised him greatly as since he'd enhanced himself with the power of the Master Emerald, his body could endure much more than before and until that point nobody had been strong enough to knock a teeth out of his mouth.

It was exactly that moment that made him realize that the dark hedgehog will not be as easily defeated as he had expected the agent to be.

That was also why he had decided to flee instead of continuing the fight. He had a plan how to battle versions equally as powerful (or less) as the Prime Shadow, not somebody who was even stronger than their Prime counterpart.

Which was odd, as he had always thought that the Prime Mobius was supposed to be the 'best Mobius', with the strongest and the smartest—with the best version of every person in the multiverse.

Maybe the unusual power of this world's inhabitants was somehow linked to the fact that they had Chaos Emeralds? Having chaos gems or any of their alternatives was very rare across the multiverse, after all...

Which was also why he had chosen exactly this world; with their Chaos Emeralds he will conquer the Prime Mobius.

(No, he still hadn't given up that idea.)

( _ Even though _ , everybody was making it unnecessarily hard for him.)

He had made this decision—to conquer the Prime—right after escaping from the No Zone. At first, he had wanted to lead the invasion from Moebius with the use of Anarchy Beryl—and this time he would have made sure to kill the Freedom Fighters right away before they would have had a chance to react. But in the end, he and his gang were forced to flee because of the Suppression Squad—which had started to go after his head the moment they had found out about his presence.

They had carried this task out with the help of the warp rings which they had stolen from the No Zone police to get to Moebius. Unfortunately for them, the portal had opened in the lair of Dr. Robotnik of this world and its energy signal caused some of his machines to malfunction and explode with deafening blast.

It had taken them _months_ to recover from the injuries that they had received there.

But that wasn't their biggest loss, no, that was losing Fiona—he had been forced leave her on Moebius as the Suppression Squad had been able to capture her just as they were leaving the anti-world. If he had tried to rescue her back then, he would have been captured. He was sure of it.

Nevertheless, the dangers of having to face the Suppression Squad, he still planned to rescue her—but at this moment he simply had no way to get back to Moebius; their warp rings were completely dead and they had no way to charge them as Fiona was the one that had always charged them. Nobody beside her knew how it was done.

However, with the power of all seven Chaos Emeralds he would have no need for warp rings, a simple thought would be enough to instantly teleport him wherever he wanted—even to another world.

And that was why he had no other choice. He simply _needed_ to get the gems back.

But before he could possibly mull over what to do if he did not get them, his communicator came to life and a very familiar voice sounded from it.

_"Scourge, are you there?"_ the gruff voice of Dawg asked, his ragged breathing suggesting he was just after some kind of physical exertion. Believing it could be because of some kind battle transpiring, Scourge took the communicator and clicked a button to respond.

"Yes, Dawg, I am here. What's happening?"

_ "We have managed to obtain the Emeralds." _

_Oh?_ Scourge blinked in surprise at the news. _So they actually managed to get them back..._ "And the birds?"

_ "They escaped us." _

Scourge frowned. That was not supposed to happen. However, instead of getting angry and scolding his gang for their incompetence to capture the annoying birds, he decided to let this one slide. The fact that they managed to get back the Emeralds was enough for him for now.

"Alright, then—return back to the base. We'll have to change our plans a little bit."

~O~

Feeling restless, Sonic once again rolled in his bed, pondering if he should get up or not.

As he honestly had no idea what he should do.

He didn't really want to face Shadow right now—but he also knew that running away won't solve anything. He slowly sat up in the bed, moving around a bit to rest his back against the bed frame. After making himself comfortable, he slowly closed his eyes and let himself think about the situation.

He never had a serious relationship with anyone—he actually hadn't ever dated anyone. The only date he ever had was with Amy—which had been few years ago already—and because of this experience he had refused to go on a date with anyone ever since.

(Yeah, seventeen years old and he had only one date in his entire life, you can start laughing now.)

Sighing, the hero ran his hand along his uppermost head-quill, a habit he had picked when he needed to calm himself down.

He actually never even had a  _ crush  _ on anyone; his feelings had never really got to the romantic level.

And yet he was supposed to be in a romantic relationship.

With a  _ guy _ .

Sonic opened his eyes, blinking. He hadn't really ever thought about his orientation either; the idea that he might not be straight have never really crossed his mind. However, that might have been just because hadn't really ever felt any sort of attraction to anyone. Be it a girl or guy, he could tell they were attractive but he had never felt attracted to  _ them _ .

A frown blossomed on his face. What did it make him when he wasn't attracted to anyone? None-sexual?

Sighing, he shook his head to remove the ridiculous thought.  _ Man, I hate thinking... _

Deciding this wasn't leading anywhere, Sonic threw his legs over the edge of the bed and got up. He needed something else to think of—something to clear his head.

Quietly, he descended the stairs and then checked each room for any signs of his host. However, Shadow was in neither of them. Frowning at this finding, Sonic made his way into the kitchen, for the first time noticing the note that way lying on the kitchen table. Curious, he picked it up and read what was written on it.

_ There's emergency at the GUN HQ, I should be back tomorrow morning. _

_ -Shadow _

Letting out a deep exhale, the hero felt as a wave of relief washed over him; this gave him one more day to think about things. Taking a few quick strides, he approached the trashcan and threw the no longer necessary note into it, then he left the kitchen and headed for the front door, at which he halted for a brief moment, his gaze lingering at the shoe cabinet as he pondered the idea of going for a run.

It was undoubtedly a horrible idea; there was high risk of someone seeing him and Shadow surely won't be happy if he finds out he has gone out.

But at the other side, running was the only thing that ever helped him to clear his head.

Sonic huffed at his uncharacteristic indecisiveness.  _ I'm over-thinking everything. _

Peach hand reached for his shoes.

~O~

The blue hero smiled widely as the wind rushed past him, his mind now focused only on running and on the colorful nature surrounding him. Oh, how he loved the feeling of wind brushing against his skin, as it roared in his ears and the feeling of complete freedom as his body become so light as if he should soar into the air like a bird a moment later...

It was not until many minutes later that he decided to stop and rest for a while whilst enjoying the beautiful day. He sat down into a shade of a big tree, enjoying the small breeze and the pleasant temperature. He slowly let his eyes close, his breathing becoming slow and steady.

But despite his peaceful appearance, the hero actually wasn't sleeping and he was from being peaceful himself—his mind had began to wander back to his problem.

The truth was he had no idea what he should do. Mostly, because he wasn't sure what _exactly_ were his feelings for his rival. He liked Shadow, no doubt about that, but he wasn't sure to what degree did he like him.

In last few days, he had this strange feeling in his gut anytime they were close to each other but from what he had heard, you should have either a feeling of butterflies in your stomach or a feeling of electricity going on between you and your loved one; however, what he felt didn't really fit in either of those two descriptions.

He wasn't even sure how to exactly describe this feeling but if he was forced to give it a name, the most fitting world would probably be...

Alarm.

That something was different about Shadow.

It really confused him as the feeling wasn't going away. Firstly, he had thought it was somehow related to the fact that he had considered Shadow's behavior strange, but now—when he knew the reason for it—he expected it to go away.

Except, it didn't.

He shook his head, sighing. Why was nothing making sense these days?

Sighing once more, he got up and stretched his back, deciding it was the time to head back to Shadow's house. However, just as he was about to break into a run, the sound of rustling leaves caught his attention, and so he turned towards where the noise was coming from, watching the unknown person stumble out of a bush not far from him.

"Mister Sonic?"

It was Cream.

The hero's green eyes went wide at the sight of the tiny rabbit with her pet Chao, Cheese, by her side. He was vaguely aware he should probably leave the scene, but as he looked around there didn't seem to be one beside them. And because it was rather deep in the forest, he didn't really want to leave Cream here alone.

So, instead of leaving the scene, he instead waved his hand as a sign of greeting, letting a kind smile on his face. "Hi, Cream. Where's your mother?"

For some reason, this question made the young girl look to the ground, her small hands beginning to play with the hem of her dress. "I don't know."

Sonic frowned at this new information. "But then what are you doing here?"

Cream looked up to him, tears in the corners of her big brown eyes. "M-mommy t-told me to run away a-and hide in t-the w-woods."

Feeling the distress of the young child, Sonic walked over to her, kneeling down to be on an eye-level with the girl once he was close enough. "Why did she do that?"

"Des-Destructix attacked our house."

" _What_?!"

Cream started to sob. "It was s-so scary! The door suddenly flew open a-and th-then they started screaming at my mommy! One of them even hit her! Then mommy screamed at me to hide in the woods! That she'll find me! But I have been here for a whole day and night and she still isn't coming! And I don't know how to get back!" The small rabbit began to sob even louder, tears now rolling down her cheeks.

Feeling a sting of sympathy in his heart at the sight, Sonic slowly embraced the young child, rubbing her back softly. "Don't worry, Cream, I'll help you home. Okay? I know this forest perfectly, so I'll get you home in no time!"

The small rabbit looked at him, nodding softly. Sonic smiled brightly at her as he took her in his arms, holding her tightly so she wouldn't fall. "Shall we go then?"

"Cheese, come here! Mister Sonic will take us home!" Cream urged her Chao friend, the small creature hesitating for a moment before it flew into her arms, its blue eyes looking curiously at the blue hedgehog.

"Alright, let's get moving!" Sonic announced and then broke into a run in the direction where he remembered the rabbit family's house to be, his great speed getting them there under three minutes—but what he saw made his blood turn cold and his smile freeze on his face.

"Mommy, we are here!" Cream jumped from his hold and ran into the demolished house, searching every room to find her mother. Sonic frowned as he trailed after her and entered the building as well.

The house was an absolute mess; the door was torn off its hinges, most of the windows were broken, furniture was flipped over or in pieces and all drawers were opened widely with its contents lying on the ground under them.

"I can't find mommy!" The rabbit girl run back to him, tears once again in the corners of her eyes. "Where could she be?"

Sonic smiled reassuringly, hoping it would ease the child's worries. "Well...I don't know. But I'll find her, alright? However, you'll have to stay at someone else's place until then..." The hero looked around the demolished house. "You should probably pack some clothes."

"Okay." Cream immediately ran back into her room and just in a minute she was back with a small blue bag. Then she took a hold of Sonic's hand, looking up at him curiously. "Where are we going?"

"Is there someone you would want to go to?" the blue hero asked, wondering where she could stay. He had no problem with taking care of her, but he wanted to give her mother a chance to reunite with her in case she was just hiding somewhere from Destructix.

"I want to stay with Mister Sonic. He will protect me from the evil Mister Sonic."

The blue hedgehog looked surprisedly at the rabbit child. Well, that explained why she hadn't ran away when she had seen him. "How did you figure out it wasn't me?"

"Mister Sonic would never hit my mommy," Cream said, tightening her grip on his hand.

"Well, at least someone, who doesn't think I'm the bad guy."

"Why would Mister Sonic be a bad guy, when he had always been a hero before?" The young girl looked at him, frowning.

Sonic laughed quietly. "That's the question most people should ask themselves."

~O~

It was three in the morning when Shadow finally got home from having to chase after the Destructix all day long. First, they had caused a riot in the city and just an hour later, they had sneaked into one of GUN's bases in search of the seventh Emerald. However, they found out about this intention just a few hours ago when Vanilla the rabbit informed GUN about an attack on her family. Destructix had obviously broken into her house, demanding from her to tell them where was the seventh Emerald. Vanilla's injuries weren't serious, but she asked them for a help to find her daughter, who had ran away during the attack.

Rouge was still searching for the child and he was supposed to switch with her in the afternoon.

Feeling incredibly tired, he locked the main door and headed towards the stairs, stopping halfway when his eyes caught a glimpse of something blue in the living room. He peeked into the room, not that much surprised to see Sonic, sprawled on the couch, and snoring loudly. However, he was surprised to see, a familiar rabbit with her Chao by her side, both silently sleeping on the armchair.

The dark agent sighed tiredly as he changed direction, and, instead of going to bed, headed to find his cell-phone to call the bat.

~O~

"Mister Sonic, you have to wake up..."

"One more minute..." the said hero mumbled into the cushions, not letting his eyes open and instead trying to return back to sleep.

"I don't think Mister Shadow will wait that long..."

Sonic's ears perked up at the familiar name, green eyes opening slowly and then blinking to clear their vision, Shadow's displeased visage filling it.

"Morning, Shads!" The blue hero beamed a smile at the frowning hedgehog—which, however, only seemed to deepen his frown even more.

"Don't you think you should inform me before you decide to adopt a child?"

The blue hero sat up. "Don't worry. She's just staying her until I find her mother. She was attacked—"

"—By Destructix. I know. Yesterday, I was summoned to search for her along with Rouge."

"Oh." The blue hedgehog rubbed the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly.

Shadow sighed. "I've already called Rouge that she's staying here. Her mother will be out of the hospital in a few days and I expect you to take a care of her until then," the dark agent said, crossing his arms to show he was not going to argue about this.

To which Sonic responded with a wide grin, not having any objections to the proposal; he had no problem with taking care of kids. "Sure thing!" the hero replied as he stood up, turning to Cream, who was quietly watching their exchange.

"So, what would you like for a breakfast, Cream?" he asked as he began to walk towards the kitchen, the young duo trailing after him and pondering their answer.

"...Carrots! We want carrots!" the young girl declared in the end, at which Sonic grimaced slightly, having trouble to hide his distaste for this particular vegetable.

"Well, I guess we still might have some. Shadow bought a lot of it few days ago."

Shadow let out a heavy sigh. Somehow, he could tell this would be a _long_ few days.

~O~

"What do you think about it, Cream?" Sonic asked, wondering if the young child would be able to help him with his problem.

"Well..." The small rabbit looked thoughtfully at her Chao, who was having a similar expression on his face, both of them clearly deeply pondering their answer. And just then Cream suddenly slammed her hands on the table, startling Sonic by the unexpected action. "Kiss will solve it!"

The blue hedgehog could feel his cheeks heat up at the proposition. "A kiss?!"

The young child smiled brightly. "Yes, a kiss! My mommy always says that kissing a loved one is magical! And if you kiss the person and it doesn't feel magical then it wasn't meant to be!"

"But I just can't kiss them out of nowhere!" Sonic exclaimed, his blush getting darker.

"Why not?" Cream raised an eye-ridge confused. "I'm sure no girl would mind being kissed by Mister Sonic!"

The blue hero gave a nervous laugh. Yeah, girls probably wouldn't mind, but certain male could. "Well, they sort of have said they like me and they could misinterpret the kiss."

The small rabbit frowned slightly. "I guess that could be a problem..."

Sonic sighed. Of course, Cream wouldn't be able to help him. What was he thinking? Asking a child for an advice—

Cream suddenly spoke up again. "Mommy says that when you love someone, you want to make them happy. Do you want to make this person happy?"

The blue hedgehog was caught of guard by the question. "Well..."

He wasn't sure. He hated when people were sad and he always did everything in his power to make them happy. It was hard to say if his actions were based on romantic feelings or altruism.

"And you feel happy when they're happy."

Sonic frowned. It always made him happy when he could help someone! How should he know if it was love?!

"And you want them to like you back..."

The blue hero blinked. Well, he had always tried to make Shadow like him; but Shadow would never let him, the agent was always closing up to people and wouldn't let him to help him overcome this incredulity...

But was it desire to help Shadow or get closer to him?

"And you feel bad anytime they say something mean to you..."

Sonic frowned. He had always taken Shadow's comments a little more personal than any of those he received from his other friends or rivals but what Cream was describing could be considered a friendship as well...

"That's what mommy always said. Did it help at least a little?" Cream asked, her big eyes filled with hope that her advice was not in vain.

"Yes, thank you," Sonic replied, deciding not to tell her that her small speech had actually brought more questions than answers. "What about an ice cream now?"

"Yay! Ice cream!" The small rabbit jumped from her seat, the conversation that had just taken place completely leaving her mind.

~O~

"Alright—Do you want strawberry or vanilla?" Sonic asked, checking the freezer one more time if he hadn't accidentally missed some other ice cream container.

"I would like strawberry, please," Cream answered and looked at Cheese to ask him which one would he like. But the Chao wasn't paying any attention to her; he was pressed against the window obviously focused on something outside. Curious, the small rabbit moved one of the chairs to the kitchen counter and then climbed up on it to look outside as well.

She followed the line of gaze of her Chao, her brows furrowing in confusion when her gaze fell upon on a simple green bush. She shot Cheese a questioning gaze, not understanding what was so fascinating about said bush.

However, when the small Chao only continued to gaze out of the window, she also turned her eyes back to the outside world, looking if she hadn't missed something.

Cream yelped in surprise as just then a pair of golden eyes appeared between the leaves of the bush, her surprise causing her to unconsciously make a step back—and off the chair. A fearful scream left her as she suddenly felt herself falling backwards, her arms flailing as they had nothing to grip onto.

"Cream!" Sonic shouted in alarm, immediately zooming over to her, catching the small child into his arms before she could fall to the ground. "Are you alright?!"

The small rabbit nodded and Sonic slowly put her back to the ground. Once back on her feet, Cream nervously glanced back to the window. "Mr. Sonic, there is someone outside, hiding in the bush."

Sonic blinked in confusion and turned his eyes to the window, a frown forming on his face. "There are no bushes around here, Cream."

"What?!" Cream hurriedly climbed up the chair again, a small frown of her own appearing on her face when she saw that there truly weren't any bushes around. "But it was right there! Right, Cheese?"

The Chao started to nod furiously, agreeing with his owner.

Sonic frowned. Could somebody be spying on them? "Eat the ice cream. I'm going to look outside," he said and immediately did so, standing outside and searching around the house for any sings of the 'bush' person barely a few seconds later; but there were no bushes, no footprints or any other sings.

Sonic scratched his head, confused. Maybe had Cream just imagined the person? Small children often had wild imagination...

Shaking his head, he walked back into the house, the pair of golden eyes on the roof of the house that followed his every step remaining undiscovered.


	17. Special No.1

Meanwhile in Sonic's home-world, it was already long past midnight and because of which all was covered under the dark cloak of night.

Well, everything except a young fox scientist who was illuminated by the light from the computer screen by which he was sitting.

The young genius rubbed his eyes tiredly, the numbers on the computer screen before him not making any sense to him anymore. He opened his eyes more wide, but the numbers still seemed more like hieroglyphs than numbers to him. He yawned loudly, taking a sip of a coffee, hoping it would boost his energy.

There were two things his big brother wouldn't approve of this situation: No.1 was him being awake this late. No.2 was him drinking coffee.

Sonic had always been taking care of his well-being. He would always chase him into the bed when he got too lost in his work, check if he was eating properly and he also made sure he wasn't drinking anything unsuitable for his age—aka energy drinks, alcohol or coffee.

But his brother was nowhere to be found and that was the reason why he was doing this.

It was already seven weeks since he had last seen Sonic and he was doing everything in his power to find him. He had searched through all the close zones, hacked into camera system of all close cities, asked all of his friends if they hadn't seen the hero, but all of their answers were 'no'. He also tried to locate the tracking device he had secretly put in Sonic's shoe, but he just _couldn't_ find it.

He was actually so desperate he even attempted to secretly hack into the GUN systems to check if they didn't happen to have any information about his missing best-friend. However, he was so exhausted at that time, that he made a mistake while hacking and actually made the GUN aware of his presence in their system.

In an hour, Shadow and Rouge were at his door step demanding to know why he had tried to hack them.

Which after weeks of worrying, had been enough of nudge to make his charade of 'being strong' shatter; he broke down into tears and just told the GUN duo everything about his missing brother.

It was very surprising when at the end of his story, Rouge promised him her help with finding the blue hero—However, he was even more surprised when Shadow promised the same. The two agents had then proceed with informing the rest of Sonic's friends and all of them then had tried to find the blue hero. But none of them had been able to find Sonic or any kind of clue where he could be.

However, that changed when the Team Dark found injured Doctor Eggman in a badly damaged building that they assumed used be one of his bases. Dr. Eggman seemed to be in some kind of shock, but he kept on repeating 'Sonic', 'stupid rodent' and 'escape', so it was assumed that Sonic's disappearance was somehow linked to him.

Nevertheless, that still didn't lead them to finding Sonic. Eggman didn't cooperate at all and only kept babbling nonsense, no matter how hard GUN—who had decided to join when they found out that Sonic had disappeared—tried to make him come back to his senses.

With eye-lids growing heavy, Tails could feel himself slowly falling into a sleep. And just as he was about to enter the dream world, there was suddenly a loud banging on the garage door that lead to his workshop, the sound making him snap awake; and in a blink of an eye he was at the door, pushing a button to open it.

_ Could it be Sonic...? _

The young fox waited nervously for the door to reveal the identity of the newcomer; and he could feel his heart sank when the door opened and instead of Sonic revealed...

Orbot and Cubot.

A very damaged Orbot and Cubot.

Like _extremely_ damaged Orbot and Cubot.

Tails stared in confusion at the two robots that seemed to be holding together by the sheer power of their robotic will.

"Plea-zzz-se...He-zz-lp..."

Tails stared at the two robots with mixed emotions. He felt sorry for them but at the same time—they were Eggman's creations! Should he save them?

"We-zz-know-zzz-wh-zzzz-at-hap-zzz-en-zz-edzz-to-So-zzz-nic..."

Tails' eyes went wide at hearing this new information. There was no doubt now.

He had to _save_ them.

~O~

"Echidna."

"Shadow."

"What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question."

Tails walked out of the house, looking at the two adults, whom he had called here and who were, for some reason, looking at each other with very distrustful expression on their faces.

The young genius cleared his throat, drawing the attention of the two older males to himself with the action. "Could you two, please, leave the fighting for later? Maybe I have figured out how to find Sonic!"

Both males raised a curious eye-ridge, patiently waiting for a further explanation.

"You see, yesterday, Eggman's robots came to my workshop saying they know what happened to Sonic! It seems he has used a Chaos Control without a Chaos Emerald! And given on the fact you two are experts at it, you surely know where he has ended up!"

The two 'experts' exchanged a nervous glance.

"Well, you see..." Knuckles rubbed his neck, trying to think of the least painful way how to crush Tails' new-found hope. "Using a Chaos Control without a Chaos Emerald is...well...impossible."

The young genius furrowed his eye-ridges in confusion. "But Sonic has used it."

The guardian took a deep breath. "Let me rephrase—It is not physically possible to use Chaos Control only with your own energy, because the consumption of the energy for the technique is so big it would..."

Tails titled his head, clearly not understanding what was Knuckles struggling to say. "It would...?"

"Kill you."

Both Tails and Knuckles sharply turned to the speaker, the echidna sending the ebony agent a glare. "Hell, Shadow, you can't drop it on him like that!"

The dark hedgehog turned his eyes to the guardian, completely ignoring the fox kid, who continued to stare at him, his blue eyes pleading him to tell him that what he just said wasn't truth. "There is no need to beat around the bush, echidna. Sonic is  _ dead _ . Using fancy words won't revive him."

"Knuckles! It's not true, right?! Shadow has gotten it wrong, right?!"

The older male looked at the young child sadly. "I'm sorry, Tails..."

"No..." Tears started to well up in the corner of the fox's eyes.

"Tails..."

The young genius fell to the ground, sobbing loudly with tears streaming down his face. "Sonic..."

Knuckles knelt down, circling his arms around the younger hero to give him some comfort in his grief. However, the echidna's purple eyes were looking at a different person—they were glaring at Shadow, the guardian's tone angry as he spoke, "Don't you have the tiniest bit of consideration for the feelings of others?!"

"He was bound to find out, stalling for time had no meaning," Shadow answered calmly, his emotionless approach to the situation making the echidna even angrier.

Knuckles hissed. "Just leave. It's not like you are helpful anyhow."

"If you wish." Shadow just shrugged his shoulders and left the scene, leaving the sobbing fox and clueless echidna alone in their grief.

~O~

Tails tapped lifelessly on his laptop, his eyes puffed from all the crying. With knowledge that Sonic was no longer alive, life suddenly felt somehow...empty. He stared at the laptop screen, not remembering what he had been typing all this time.

He closed his laptop with a sigh, planning to sleep away the day even thought it was only three in the afternoon—Knuckles would wake him up if something happened.

He walked out of the workshop and was met with a sight of Orbot and Cubot animatedly whispering about something. However, when they finally noticed him they immediately went silent and exchanged a glance. Orbot cleared his metal throat as he looked at Tails.

"First of all, we would like to thank you for repairing us and allowing us to stay at your house—" Tails stared at the robot, completely uninterested what the robot had to say. But it was impolite to just walk away; Sonic had taught him that.

Sonic...

"—and also apologize for eavesdropping on your earlier conversation with Knuckles and Shadow. But I feel obliged to say that according to our calculations, there is 92% chance Sonic is still alive."

Tails' eyes went wide at the information and he lunged forward, seizing hold of the robot's tiny shoulders and then shaking the poor robot. "Are you serious?!"

"Yes, in the moment of teleportation, Sonic has been hit by electricity. And based on our previously collected data about Chaos Control, the electrical current should have given him enough boost to successfully chaos control."

"So, Sonic might be still alive!" Tails cheered—but then his mood changed drastically again, a pang of panic shooting into his system. "But where is he then?"

Orbot scratched the back of his 'neck'. "Because chaos energy and electrical energy are little bit different, it is possible that the Chaos Control has worked unusually. It has most likely sent him to a different place than he had in mind. But according to our calculations, it still should be somewhere on Mobius."

"So, you are saying, Sonic still might be alive, just trapped somewhere?"

Orbot nodded. "Yes, that's what I am saying."

Tails scooped the robots into a hug and then made few spins with them, laughing heartily. "Sonic is alive! Sonic is alive!"

~O~

Rouge looked at her cell-phone in confusion. It was the same unknown number that had been trying to call her for ten minutes straight. But she had given up on picking up unknown numbers a long time ago; 99 % of the time it were just telemarketers trying to sell her something. She sighed.  _ This telemarketer is surely adamant. _

But maybe, just maybe this was something important.

Sighing, she took her cell-phone, swiped her thumb across the screen to accept the call and then placed it to her ear. "Rouge the Bat speaking."

_ "SweetChaosRouge!Youwillnotbelievethis!ThereisninetytwopercentchanceSonicisstillalive!"  _ Tails' extremely excited voice sounded from the her cell-phone, making the female agent wonder how on Mobius the young fox got her number.

It was probably just another genius thing.

"Alright, slow down, sugar! Take a deep breath and explain from the beginning," the bat instructed him and the young genius did as he was told.

Rouge had heard the news about Sonic's assumed death from Shadow only an hour ago. She didn't really had a time to mourn Sonic's death yet as she was more concerned about Shadow's behavior after he had told her news; Shadow had never been a ball of sunshine and rainbows, but he seemed to be even more negative than usually.

It was obvious that Sonic's assumed death had affected him even if he wouldn't admit it.

_ "Well, Orbot and Cubot explained to me that what exactly had happened that day. You see, Sonic shouldn't have been able to survive using Chaos Control without an Emerald. But at the very moment he had been about to enter the Einstein-Rosen bridge, he was hit by electricity! That means he had enough energy to survive the Chaos Control! We just need to find where he is!" _

"What a great news!" Rouge couldn't help but let a smile form on her face. "I'll immediately inform GUN that the search is continuing!"

_ "Do that! I'll tell Knuckles!" _

The line went silent and Rouge let her smile show fully. She walked out into the hall and then started to speak in a voice loud enough so Shadow would hear her even in his room. "Hey, Shadow, I have great news!"

And just a moment later, her ebony colleague peeked out of his room, appearing very irritated by her bothering him. "What is it, bat? And why the hell do you sound so freaking happy about it?"

Rouge let her grin spread wider. "Tell me what would happen if someone was hit by electricity while performing a Chaos Control?"

Shadow furrowed his eye-ridges in confusion, not sure why she was asking him such a question. "Well, either it would enhance the effect of the technique or somehow alter it. Why?"

"Well, if it would enhance the technique could the electrical energy be enough to Chaos Control even without an Emerald?"

The dark agent blinked confusedly, still trying to put together the pieces of information that she had just presented him, and a moment later they finally clicked together, a look of understanding blossoming on his face. "You mean—"

"Sonic is alive and we have to find him," Rouge said and she couldn't miss the way corners of Shadow's lips twitched, the dark hedgehog obviously having a hard time not to smile. But Rouge didn't need to see his smile to know, how glad he was to hear this.

However, the happy atmosphere did not last long as it was suddenly interrupted by the Commander's voice sounding from Rouge's communicator, drawing both of their attention to it.

_ "Agent Rouge and agent Shadow, return to the HQ immediately!" _

"What's the matter?" Rouge asked, her left hand laid over the communicator as she kept the line open.

_ "Doctor Eggman has been abducted." _

"What?!" she asked, surprised. "By who?"

_ "By himself." _

"What?! I don't think I've heard correctly—"

_ "No, agent. You have heard me correctly. We are not sure what is happening, but I want both you and agent Shadow back at the HQ in half an hour!" _

"Yes, sir. We are on our way," she affirmed, closing the line as her eyes left the communicator to gaze at her teammate, exchanging a glance with him.

It seemed that Sonic would have to wait.


	18. The Eighth of Destructix

Once again checking the Chaos Emeralds were safely locked in the safe, Scourge ran his hand along his quills to calm his nerves; he had been extremely stressed for last few days as every hideout they had chosen lately was somehow given away to GUN in a mere few days. He was honestly starting to consider the possibility that someone in the gang might be an informer for GUN.

It would made sense. Because Shadow, Chaotix and even Babylon Rogues, all of them worked for GUN.

However, he didn't know which member of the gang could it possibly be. To be honest, he had never really trusted them in the first place but because Fiona had convinced him that they were trustworthy, he had faith in them. Of course, that left Sonic as the only possible option but out of everybody in his gang he trusted him the most; he didn't think this Sonic would ever betray him.

Of course, he didn't have any evidence of this, but he was completely sure the guy was a full-blooded criminal like him—he had seen it in him at the first time they had met. He couldn't describe how exactly, he simply...felt it.

It was quite easy to tell what the guy was thinking—well, it always was, when the person was yourself—they worked perfectly together as a team and on top all of that, Sonic had amazing computer skills. It was actually his virus that had gotten them the advantage against GUN and thanks to which they also knew who all their allies were.

He didn't really think that this Sonic would betray him; loyalty was a common trait among Sonics.

Feeling another wave of fatigue rush over him, the tired Destructix leader decided it was the time to head for his bed—thinking could wait for tomorrow. With the last glance to the closed safe, he turned around and headed for his bed, his exhausted mind failing to notice the blue hedgehog, whom he considered the most loyal, as he sneaked past him to stole the Chaos Emeralds.

The blue criminal waited by the door until Scourge was completely out of sight, then he smirked and moved over to the safe, opening the steel box with ease as he recalled the number code which he had seen Scourge enter just minutes ago.

He opened the door of the safe and the glow of the bright shining gems, lightened up both him and the dark room. Not wanting to waste any more time—and possibly be caught—he quickly replaced the Chaos Emeralds with six identically-looking copies, stuffing the originals into a bag which he'd brought along. Then, after checking the fake Emeralds were positioned in the same way the originals had been so Scourge wouldn't see a difference, he quietly closed the safe and left the room.

With the utmost caution, he crept back into his own room, throwing the bag with Emeralds far under his bed so it wouldn't be discovered easily. Then he looked towards a big mirror which stood just four feet away from the bed, his reflection gazing back at him.

He walked over to, standing with his side to it as he ran his fingers along the scar that was on his shoulder, but which was currently invisible because of his disguise.

The feeling of the whip tearing his skin still felt vivid in his memory...

As the face of the hero of Mobius continued to look back at him, the criminal's observing look soon morphed into a glare. It was the same face that had once belonged to anti-Sonic before he had became Scourge.

Sneering at the image once more, the imposter whipped around and swiftly exited his room and minutes later the Destructix's hideout as well, heading into the city to set another part of his plan into the action. And he no more was able to contain his twisted glee, a smirk showing on his face as he imagined Scourge, crushed, as another of his plans crumbled right under his hands just a step away from success.

Revenge was truly sweet...

~O~

The Great Forest was quiet; but because it was very early in the morning, it was to be expected.

However, this did not apply to the whole forest—if you were to walk just a little further into it, you could possibly hear and see the bickering between two mercenaries—members of the Team Hooligan.

Specifically, between Bean the Dynamite, the explosives expert, and Nack the Weasel—to most known as Fang the Sniper and the leader of Team Hooligan.

But despite his position as a leader, Nack was currently having rather big trouble enforcing his authority. "Give me back my gun, Bean! Immediately!" he shouted, lunging once again to re-obtain his weapon from the energetic green duck that was his teammate.

"But it's so shiny!" Bean said, his eyes sparkling as he held the gun close to his chest, like many other winged Mobians having an unhealthy—and to other maddening—obsession with shiny objects.

Greatly irritated by the other's noncooperation, the weasel mercenary growled and charged forward again. "BEAN! GIVE IT BACK!"

"No! It's mine!" the duck yelled as he dodged the attack. He then extended his arm, an ignited bomb appearing in his hand barely a moment later. Seeing this, Nack halted in his chase and then even made a step back, gulping as he raised his hands before him in a placating manner.

"Okay, okay. You can borrow it for a while."

"Thanks, Fang!" Bean beamed a smile at him, discarding the no longer necessary bomb by throwing it deeper into the forest, its explosion making Nack jerk as well as scaring the poor animal residents of the woods.

Feeling he was no longer in immediate danger of bomb being thrown into his face, Fang let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding, his blue eyes soon turning to look at the last member of their little group. "You could have helped a little, Bark."

The polar bear, Bark, just grunted and shrugged his shoulders—he never stepped in unless things got serious.

Sighing, Nack turned away and looked around, a frown forming on his face when he still couldn't see anybody beside them in the vast forest. "She surely is taking her time..."

_ Maybe, was that chick just drunk and thought it would be hilarious to make fun out of me...  _ the weasel mercenary frowned as he tried to recall his hazy memories of previous night at the bar.  _ But she didn't look drunk... _

Fang looked around once again, still no one in sight. "Anyone know what the time it is?"

"Judging by the position of the sun, I'd guess about six o'clock," a familiar voice sounded from above, each member of the Team Hooligan sharply turning to the newcomer, all of them surprised by the face they were met with.

"Whoa! I've surely haven't expected you to be here...Sonic," Nack remarked, watching as the cobalt hedgehog jumped down from the branch he had been sitting on, a smirk playing on his face.

"Well, sorry to disappoint you but you actually were called here because of me."

"So, that sexy chick works for you? Quite nice change from that pink kid!" Fang commented as he approached the other, his teammates remaining where they were and watching the exchange from afar.

"Don't even remind me of  _ her _ !" the blue criminal hissed, a visible shudder of revulsion racking the hedgehog's form at the memory of Amy. "So, are you up to the deal or not?"

With a smirk on his face, Nack began to thoughtfully scratch his chin. "You are aware that payment for something so dangerous will be  _ enormous _ _ ,  _ right?"

The blue hedgehog smirked at the silent implication. "Would a Chaos Emerald be enough for you?"

~O~

"Bye, Mister Sonic!" Cream waved from her spot by Rouge's side, the small Chao by her side doing the same.

And Sonic energetically copied the gesture, "Bye, Cream! Bye, Rouge! See both of you soon!"

"See you later, Sonic!" Rouge waved him a short goodbye before scooping both Cream and her pet into her arms and soaring into the air, her winged form soon becoming barely visible dot in the distance.

For a moment longer, Sonic watched the departing trio and then, with a sigh, he returned inside the house, closing the door tightly after himself. It was great Rouge was finally taking Cream and Cheese back home. Cream was a great kid, she was very calm and didn't cause any trouble, but Cheese...that was a completely different story.

During their stay here, the Chao had managed to get stuck somewhere four times, break the last few vases left in Shadow's house and completely flood the bathroom.

(Let's just say that Shadow wasn't exactly _happy_ about the last one.)

Once in the kitchen, the hero grabbed the bread from the counter—plus few other things from the fridge—and started to prepare himself a snack. However, just as he was about to place the cheese on the sandwich a realization struck him.

He was alone with Shadow in the house. He would have to to speak with him about  _ that _ _ night _ .

Sonic gulped. Earlier he hadn't realized it but Cream and Cheese were keeping him busy so he didn't have time to think about the night—let alone talk with Shadow about it—but now when the two were gone...

"Morning, Sonic."

If it had been physically possible, Sonic was sure he would have jumped out of his skin at the unexpected greeting.

"Oh, h-hi, Shads."

The dark agent raised a curious brow at his jumpy reaction, but, luckily, did not question it.

"I thought you had already left for work," Sonic commented as he resumed with preparing his snack, hoping that focusing on something that wasn't the ebony agent would help him calm his racing heart.

"Actually, I just got back," Shadow replied from his spot by the open fridge, clearly as well wanting something to snack on.

"Well, you surely know how to be stealthy about it," the blue hero commented, laying the last bread on his sandwich and thus finally finishing it.

And suddenly—there was a warm breath ghosting over the back of his neck. "I sure do."

The blue hero let out a _ loud  _ squeak at the sudden 'attack' and he jumped away from the other, his heart once again hammering in his chest. But this was clearly the reaction Shadow had hoped for as he only smirked and snatched the sandwich from his plate. "I'm taking this."

"What? Hey!" The blue hero made a step forward to get back his snack—but by then the dark agent had already disappeared behind the corner. Sonic glared at the spot where Shadow had once stood. "Thief."

"I've heard that!"

"You were supposed to!" Sonic yelled back, letting a brief smile on his face before sighing; that moment had almost made it feel normal between them again, just like before that night...

_ The only difference between then and now is the knowledge that he wants to jump your bones,  _ a voice in back of his mind stated matter-of-factly, making the hero wonder where the heck had it come from.

_He has never attempted to do such thing!_ he replied, to which the voice, unsurprisingly, had a comment as well.

_ Oh, come on, you and him are a couple. And couples do  _ ** _**stuff** _ ** _ , duh! _

_ We aren't couple!  _ Sonic protested, a sigh sounding from his inner voice a moment later.

_ Do you need me to tell you again the story Shadow have told you just two days ago? _

_ But—  _ Sonic tried to interject; however, the voice would have none of it.

_ No, buts! Just because you don't remember it, it doesn't suddenly stop being a fact! _

"Oh, shut up!" Sonic growled, tired of the argument and hoping the voice would just return to wherever it had come from.

"I believe that's my line, hedgehog."

The blue hero yelped, wondering how in the name of Chaos Shadow had managed to sneak up on him.

_Again._

Shadow snorted in amusement at his reaction. Sonic only send him a glare. "Sweet heavens, Shadow, stop sneaking up on me! You'll give me a heart attack one day if you continue."

"I cannot help myself—it's incredibly entertaining hearing you scream like a little girl," Shadow remarked with smirk, receiving a light punch from the cobalt hero for the comment.

"Don't make fun of me!"

Sensing there was something wrong—Sonic would usually retort with a taunt of his own in situations like these—Shadow let the smirk disappear from his face and instead replaced it with a mildly concerned expression. "Is something troubling you?"

Sonic's body tensed at the question, wondering how Shadow managed to read him so easily. He leaned against the kitchen table, trying to make his body relax in case that Shadow was just reading his body-language. "Nope, nothing."

"Liar."

Sonic turned his gaze to the ground, frowning slightly. Why did Shadow have to be so attentive?! "I'm saying the truth. There's nothing."

"You've always been a horrible liar, you know that?" Shadow asked, sighing. "What's the matter, hedgehog?"

The blue hero's gaze shot up at the question, frowning at the other hedgehog. "It's nothing **_you_** need to worry about!"

Shadow raised an eye-ridge. Sonic had an angry tone and was snapping at him. He was obviously feeling cornered.

By him.

"Sonic, if something is troubling you then I need to worry," Shadow said, his tone gentle. Sonic flinched at this. Up to this point, he had heard Shadow say his name only when the agent was angry or trying to get him to listen, he had never heard him say it in such a...soft way.

And then the situation came crushing back down on him.

Shadow didn't consider him that annoying cocky blue nuisance anymore. He wasn't stabbing him in the heart with his hateful words anymore. He wasn't trying to push him away anymore.

Before, if something happened to him, Shadow wouldn't care. Maybe he would be even happy that he was finally gone.

But now it was the opposite.

_ Making Shadow care about something that's quite a big achievement in itself,  _ Sonic realized and then he looked at Shadow, who was just silently watching him with arms crossed over his chest.  _ He probably expects some sort of an answer... _

"Well..." Sonic started and Shadow uncrossed his arms, a genuine look of interest on his face. However, the cobalt hero wasn't sure if he should continue. He knew he could trust Shadow. But it was just so strange to let his long-time rival see a glimpse of his insecurities.

But, hey, Shadow told him  _ the story _ , so, it was probably alright to open up a little bit as well, wasn't it?

"...It's just weird, you know," he began, playing with his glove to avoid looking at the other, and Shadow kept silent, giving him the time to collect his thoughts.

"...Knowing you were in romantic relationship with someone and...not remembering it," the cobalt hero confessed, looking up to meet Shadow's gaze. Said hedgehog only stared at him with an unreadable expression on his face for a moment and then he sighed.

"Yes, the situation is truly...awkward."

Sonic nodded. Yes, awkward. That was the correct word.

Shadow took a deep breath and sighed once again. "I'll keep my distance if that makes you feel better."

For some reason, Sonic could hear something screaming 'Alarm!' in his head when hearing this statement. "That w-won't be necessary!" he said, Shadow's brow immediately shooting up at the unusual reaction.

Sonic could feel his cheeks heat up. That had come out  ** _so_ ** wrong. "I meant—you know—just being a little more Shadow-like as you used to be."

Shadow smirked in amusement at the other attempting to cover his slip-up. "So, you prefer bad boys, hedgehog?"

"And no flirting."

"As if I would flirt with you," the dark hedgehog responded, crossing his arms over his chest and putting on a scowl.

" _ That _ 's what I am talking about." Sonic grinned. "What about a race now?"

"You can't beat the Ultimate Life form," Shadow warned him, a playful glint coming to life in his crimson eyes—the sight enough for Sonic's to do the same.

"Wanna bet?"

~O~

Being a Commander of a global military organization is not an easy job; the weight of responsibility on your shoulders is so heavy, the fate of the world literally lays in your hands—even a tiny slip-up can ruin everything.

The GUN Commander was very well aware of this fact and he did everything in his power to do his job as right as possible—and for this exact reason he couldn't understand how on Earth he could have made such a horrible mistake.

Heterochromatic eyes once again turned to look at the photographs in his hands, wondering how it was possible he hadn't realized there was something strange going on right under his nose. "So it is true..."

A pair of golden eyes looked up from the ground to look at him, the owner of those eyes nodding only a moment later. "Yes, sir."

The Commander frowned as he placed the photos on the table, sighing. "I was a fool. I truly believed they were on our side."

"Everyone did."

The Commander let on a bitter-sweet smile at the comment. "That is true."

"What are the orders now, sir?" the golden-eyed male asked, receiving an intense gaze from the officer.

"I believe that's quite obvious..."

~O~

"That was so not fair!" Sonic exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at his dark rival who only snorted.

"It is not my fault you have tripped over some root," Shadow commented, crossing his arms over his chest. "You should have watched where you were going."

"You know this part of forest better than me!"

"You were the one who suggested this track."

"You—!...Eh...Alright, you win this round!" The blue hero admitted with a sigh as he sat down, putting his hands on the upper part of his left foot to massage his aching ankle; his foot had gotten stuck under a root, but because he had been running so fast, his foot had torn it out of the ground but not without his foot getting twisted painfully in the process. He then had been then send rolling down the hill which had been the last part of their racing track.

Of course, this resulted in Shadow's victory—but Sonic was 99 % sure the race would end in draw if he hadn't tripped over the stupid root!

"Is it sprained?" Shadow asked, kneeling down beside the injured hedgehog.

"Nah, it seems alright. It'll probably just hurt for a few hours," Sonic commented and then got up and made a few experimental steps to prove his point—and as he had thought, there was just a slight pain. It surely was nothing he couldn't handle; he had to deal with worse many times before.

"If you say so," Shadow muttered, standing up as well.

_ "Agent Shadow, return to the HQ immediately!" _

Both of them looked towards Shadow's communicator, the ebony one with a frown.  _ What the hell do they want now? _

Sighing, the dark agent reached into his head quills and took out the blue Chaos Emerald that he had been carrying everywhere so he would always know where it was. He turned it around in his hand and then threw it towards Sonic who caught it with no problem, his lightning fast reflexes making it an easy task for him. "I'm going to run to the GUN HQ. You can use the Emerald if your ankle starts to give you a trouble."

"My ankle is fine. I don't need it—" Sonic started to argue, but Shadow sent him another of his 'I will not argue about this' looks, which effectively silenced him.

_ "Agent Shadow, return to—" _

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on my way already," the dark agent responded to the man on the other side of the line and then, with a last glance to the blue hero, he ran off, leaving Sonic alone in the woods.

The cobalt hero looked at the Chaos Emerald in his hand, his ankle painfully reminding him of his recent accident.

_ It seems that he doesn't know I need at least two of these to Chaos Control... _

~O~

Rouge sighed as she took another sip of her coffee, wishing it would miraculously cure her boredom.

After returning Cream to her mother, she had returned back to the GUN HQ, expecting to be immediately send on another mission. However, the Commander had instead told her to wait in the common room until he called her.

She tapped impatiently with her foot, frowning when she looked at the clock. It had been already an hour since the Commander had send her here and she hadn't heard a word from him since.

_ "Agent Rouge, the Commander requests your immediate presence in his office." _

_Finally._ The white bat stood up, throwing her empty cup into a nearby trash bin. Then she exited the common room, her legs carrying her towards the Commander's office. But when she was about half-way there, her super-sensitive ears caught a sound of familiar voice and she halted in her way, her curiosity piqued and her ears perked.

"—That's s-so nice of you!" the voice said, stuttering slightly. It was Tails' voice, she was sure of it. But what was he doing here?

"Oh, sweetie, believe me, you deserve it," a female voice responded and it took Rouge a moment to connect the voice to a face; she didn't know the girl's name but she often met her around the GUN base. And even though the girl had been here for four months already, they had never spoken a single word to each other. However, in those four months the female had gained quite lot of reputation; the girl was a great spy, and had amazing medical and hand-to-hand combat skills, and apparently some kind of computer genius as well.

"—It's pleasure to work with you, Tails."

Rouge made a step back to be able to see the talking duo.

The female was standing with her back towards her, blocking Tails from her sight. Rouge used the opportunity to finally look over the so called 'genius'. The girls seemed to be some kind of fox. Her built was slender and fit and her attire consisted of black leather clothes, which made an interesting contrast with her reddish fur and the yellow ribbon that was decorating her short brown hair.

Though the most interesting detail was definitely the scar that was peeking out from under her shirt right on her shoulder.

"No." Tails smiled brightly. "The pleasure is all mine, Fiona!"


	19. Getting Caught

_So, Fiona, huh?_ Rouge looked over the female once again, wondering why the other woman made her feel uneasy anytime she got near her. Maybe it was the way she talked? Or the way she acted?

Sighing, the white bat shook her head. This was not the right time to think about things like this—the Commander was not a man of patience. She resumed her walking and just in two minutes she found herself before her superior's office door.

She raised her hand to knock, but stopped when a voice suddenly sounded from her left side, calling her name. She turned to look at the owner of the voice and was surprised to see Tails running towards her. "Hey, hon. Is there something you need?"

"Yeah, here."

Rouge stared in confusion at a golden ring that was presented to her. "What's with that ring?"

The young genius raised an eye-ridge. "You don't remember? That's the teleportation ring you gave me a few days ago! I though you'd want it back."

"Oh, yes! The teleportation ring—I completely forgot! I'll give it back to Shadow once I have a chance," Rouge promised, taking back the ring. "Well, if there isn't anything else you need, Tails, I have to see the Commander, so—"

"No, nothing! See ya later!" Tails ran off and the bat could only guess the reason for such a fast departure.

She guessed a certain _foxy_ reason.

The white bat looked at the ring in her hand, wondering where she could place it so she wouldn't have to carry it around all day in her hand. The ring was too small to wear it on her wrist and she didn't have any pockets on her clothes.

Then an idea appeared in her mind. _Well, another good thing about being female,_ she thought with a chuckle and then placed the ring into her bra—onto the left side so it wouldn't get in the way anyhow.

After briefly readjusting her clothes, she raised her hand once again and knocked on the Commander's door, the officer's voice calling her in barely a second later.

"Did you wish to talk to me, sir?" she asked as she entered the office, closing the door after herself. From his place behind the desk, the Commander nodded "Yes, agent. Please, take seat."

Rouge turned from the door to her superior, noticing they weren't the only ones in the room. She slowly approached the armchairs that stood before the officer's table, seeing it was her hedgehog colleague that was already sitting there. "Oh, hello there, Shadow."

"Rouge." Shadow nodded as greeting, his crimson eyes briefly darting to her before turning back to the Commander, who was no gesturing to her to sit.

"Please, agent Rouge, sit down."

And as asked she sat down next to her colleague, wondering why both of them had been summoned here.

"Agent Shadow and agent Rouge..." The Commander made a long pause, his heterochromatic eyes gazing at them contemplatively, because of which the two colleagues exchanged a glance. Why was the Commander giving them both such a strange look?

And just moment later they found out, their bloods running cold at the single question.

"Are you aware that hiding Sonic the Hedgehog from us is a high treason?"

~O~

Sonic had a feeling that someone was watching him and he knew that couldn't be paranoia as the feeling was getting stronger and  ** _stronger_ ** ; his intuition was an expert on sensing danger so this definitely wasn't a false alarm.

Seeing from the corner of his eye something black zooming past his window, he sharply turned around towards the window and then even ran to it; just in time to see two people dressed in dark military uniforms jump into a bush to hide from his view.

Sonic felt his heart quicken up the pace. Why were there people outside of Shadow's house? They were far from any sort of civilization! Why were there people?!

And why were they dressed as GUN soldiers?!

Because of his stretched nerves, the hero almost jumped out of his skin when Shadow's cell-phone, which was lying on the kitchen table, suddenly made a sharp ringing sound that suggested there was a new text message. He swiftly grabbed the phone and tapped the small mail-icon to look at the new message from Rouge, for a moment not even considering it could possibly be something for Shadow and not him.

And this proved to be good as the message spelled only 'run' in capital letters, which immediately triggered his mind to take action when the sound of Shadow's front door crushing down echoed and an unfamiliar voice began yelling orders along the lines of 'Catch him!'

Without even thinking about it, Sonic immediately opened the window and jumped out—which was just in time to escape the hold of GUN soldiers, who had been able to get to the kitchen fast enough to attempt to grab him.

However, at the very moment his feet touched the ground, _ten_ guns were pointed at his head.

"Sonic the Hedgehog, surrender now and your life will be spared!"

The blue hedgehog looked around him frantically. He couldn't let himself get caught! Shadow had told him what kind of horrible things were the GUN willing to do to get information—and he really doubted they would believe his word that he was not working with the Destructix.

"Raise your hands!"

Sonic started to slowly raise his hands to give the illusion of surrender while his eyes still searched for the best escape route; and the moment he found it he broke into a run towards the forest, catching the GUN soldiers of guard for a few seconds with the action.

But, unfortunately for him, the leader of the team was fast to react and immediately yelled out an order. "Fire!"

The moment the order reached Sonic's ears, the cobalt hero made a sharp turn to the left to escape the bullets—which was a good move as one of the bullets barely missed his ear. Huffing, Sonic grit his teeth and pushed himself forward, ignoring the pain that shot through his ankle which was giving him a serious trouble with running even at this pace.

"Fire!"

Sonic's gaze snapped to the direction from where the scream had come from, his heart skipping a beat when he saw what appeared to be at least twenty GUN soldiers sitting in the tree crowns, all pointing their guns at him.

Gulping, the hero focused his attention on dodging and getting out of the bullet rain that was now falling on him. He felt the bullets graze him— _barely_ miss him—as he twisted his body to escape them all and when the sound of gunshots finally stopped few seconds later, he couldn't help but let a triumphant smile show on his face.

But his feeling of victory was short-lived as just a split second later he caught his foot in _another_ stupid root, the event sending him tumbling to the ground just like hours prior.

Sonic gritted his teeth in pain as he smashed face-first into the ground, a wave off pain shooting through his entire body upon the collision.

"I got him!" someone cheered from somewhere up in the tree crown, probably believing it was his bullet that had downed him—and not a stupid root—and then he heard as the male began to climb down the tree, most likely to tie him up so he wouldn't run away.

Sonic looked over his shoulder, the barely visible shapes of GUN soldiers coming nearer and nearer. Then he looked back towards the soldier, who thought that he had shot him, this one being dangerously close already. The hero attempted to move his ankle but unbearable pain shot through his entire leg, forcing him to grit his teeth so he wouldn't shout in pain.

He couldn't run. But at the same time he _couldn't_ let himself get caught.

The blue hero reached into his quills where Shadow's Emerald was still safely hidden. He gripped the gem tightly and send a victorious smirk towards the lone soldier. "Sorry, pal, I've gotta go! Chaos Control!"

And in a flash of light he was gone.

~O~

"This brings many memories, Shadow, don't you think?" Rouge asked casually as she looked over the cell they had been put into after failed attempt of trying to explain to the Commander Sonic's situation—who, unsurprisingly, hadn't believed their story at all.

"You mean humans being stupid? Yes, that brings a lot of memories," Shadow answered as he searched the cell for any kind of weakness they could use to escape, the female beside him only lounging on one of the cell beds and not even attempting to do anything.

"No, I mean us being considered the bad guys. It's just like back with Doctor."

"Hmm," Shadow grunted as he looked at the bars of the cell. They were quite thin, maybe he could—

" _Gah_!"

Rouge turned to him in alarm, her 'no worries' demeanor disappearing for this brief moment. "Are you alright?!"

The dark agent hissed as he shook his tingling hand, but nodded nevertheless. "Yes. It seems there is electricity running through these bars."

"Well, everyone already knows what you can do. It would be foolish of them to place us in an ordinary cell," the female commented as she lay back down on the cell bed, watching her teammate as he continued to search the small room.

"For once they used their brains," the ebony agent remarked, this time noticing how his colleague was just lying on a cell bed without any care in the world. "Would you, please, stop slacking off? We need to find a way to get out."

Theatrically sighing, Rouge slowly got up. "Well, I can't refuse when you are asking so  _ nicely _ ."

Shadow just rolled his eyes at the comment and began to tap on the walls to check if they weren't hollow in some places. Behind him, his female colleague only smirked as she fixed her clothes. "Though I believed Mr. Ultimate Life form could do everything  _ all  _ by himself."

"And I believed that out of us two, you were the one who was the master of getting in and out of guarded places without getting noticed."

"Touché." Rouge smirked as she fixed her bra again. Why was it so uncomfortable? There seemed to be something digging into her chest—

"So, Mrs. Spy, what kind of brilliant plan—" Shadow chose the worst moment to turn around and he could only stare in utter confusion at his colleague who—for some unknown reason—currently had a hand between her breasts. Though, he managed to recover almost immediately. "Rouge, I don't think your bosom will get us out of this mess."

"Shush," Rouge said, winking at him a moment later ."And just enjoy the show."

Rolling his eyes once more, Shadow crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Rouge to reveal what kind of escape plan she had hidden in her cleavage. And just then the white bat finally found out what she was looking for and showed him the golden warp ring that Tails had given her earlier.

But Shadow still wasn't impressed. "How can a golden ring help us anyhow?"

Rouge let an amused smirk show on her face at the inquiry. "Because this isn't an ordinary ring, hon. This is the teleportation ring of Destructix—and it's in a  _ working  _ order," she emphasized, enjoying the look of realization that blossomed on the other's face, her own smile only widening. "Never doubt my breasts, Shadow.  _ Never _ _._ "

~O~

"Anyone else having feeling we might have a problem?" Nack asked in a whisper as he peeked around a corner and into the corridor where Flying Frog was still standing, now luckily looking in the opposite direction of their hiding spot.

"Let me handle this!" Bean announced, a wide crazy smile forming on his face while a bomb materialized in his out-stretched hand.

Seeing this, Fang immediately caught his arm, clasping a hand over the duck's beak, and hissing, "We are supposed to do this stealthily!"

"Aww..." Bean whined but let the bomb disappear. "You're no fun!"

"Not everybody enjoys being chased around—Wait! Where's Bark?" Fang looked around, alarmed that the third member of their team had disappeared—and just a moment later, there was a muffled scream and sound of something heavy hitting the ground. Curious, the two mercenaries peeked around the corner again and saw Bark towering over the unconscious frog at his feet.

"Good job!" the weasel exclaimed as both he and Bean joined their bear accomplice. "Let's hide him! We cannot let Destructix find about us."

Bark grunted in affirmation and slung the frog over his shoulder. Then, after finding the first available room, he threw the unconscious amphibian into it, shutting the door tightly so no one would spot him by accident.

Meanwhile, Fang was looking around another corner yet again, gesturing for his comrades that the air was clear. "Let's hurry. We can't be sure when they'll come back."

~O~

"Sonic said that the **_thing_** should be somewhere around here. Start looking!" Fang ordered before running off to search for a box that would fit the description they had been given.

"Hey! What about this box?" Bean shouted from the center of the storage, pointing to a certain enormous box in the middle of the room.

Nack immediately joined him at the box, looking at it more closely. "Well, it's the correct size, but where is the—" His eyes scanned the box for a small red 'X' that was supposed to be there, finding it barely a moment later. "Aha! Here it is! We've got it, guys!—Bark, take it and let's get out of here!"

The bear mercenary immediately did as told, huffing little under the weight; he might have an immense strength but this thing was heavier than anything he ever had to carry. However, he had to wait for further instructions from Fang who was currently searching for an exit; they couldn't leave the same way they had come as the box wouldn't get through the door.

While the other were busy—Fang with searching for the door and Bark with carrying the mysterious cargo—Bean looked at the box, thoughtful expression forming on his face.

"What do you think is in the box?" he asked aloud, an idea sparking in his mind a moment later. "Let's find out!"

The duck then attempted to jump on the box so he could pry the lid open, but he was roughly brought down by Nack, the weasel wanting to get out of there before the Destructix returned. "Stop doing nonsense and search for an exit! Who cares what's in there?! We'll get a freaking Chaos Emerald for this! There can't be nothing as valuable as that in here!"

Bark raised an eye-ridge, speaking up even thought it was something he rarely did. "Then why does Sonic want it so much as to give a Chaos Emerald for it?"

Fang stopped in his track, the realization dawning on him. The weasel looked at the box again, thousands of possible scenarios racing through his mind.

But there was only way to find out.

"Let's open it!" he ordered, grinning like an excited child waiting to see what was in their Christmas presents. Bark huffed as he placed the box down again, his hands grabbing the lid and then prying it off with no visible effort.

And the room was suddenly bathed in green light, the team Hooligan starting in awe at the Master Emerald, all of them imagining the loads of money they could have if they managed to sell this.

"Anybody against changing our plan?"

There was no reply.

Fang let a please smirk on his face. "Good then."

~O~

Groaning, Sonic slowly opened his sleep-glued eyes. What was with all the fainting after Chaos Control nowadays? It surely had been no fun the first time already.

Though this time it had not been utterly unexpected; he had trouble to teleport with two Chaos Emeralds, let alone one...

Moaning quietly, the blue hero slowly rose back to his feet—and almost fell down again when he rested his weight on his left ankle that honestly felt as if it was split open. Luckily, it was only swollen horribly, so instead of having to search for immediate medical treatment he only needed to secure himself by holding onto a wall.

Wait a moment...a wall?

Blinking in confusion, the cobalt hero looked around himself and noticed that he was in a house, which, by the way, didn't look familiar at all. Where on Mobius could he be?

"So, what do you say? I build it myself."

To this day, Sonic absolutely refuses the possibility that he might have screamed very unmanly (aka like a little girl) back then and he still has no idea why the heck Knuckles laughed so much at his not-screaming-like-a-little girl moment.

"Sweet Chaos, Knux, you almost gave me an heart-attack."

The echidna just continued to chuckle.

The cobalt speedster sighed as he sat back down, hissing as his injury reminded him of its existence once again. "After you stop laughing at my misery, would you mind getting me a cold cloth?"

"A cold cloth?" Knuckles immediately stopped laughing at the request, raising an eye-ridge questioningly.

"Yeah, I've hurt my ankle," Sonic explained as he took off his left shoe and then sock as well, revealing to the echidna the injury he hadn't been able to see because of his thick socks.

"Yeah, sure, just wait here," the other male said, exiting the room to get the desired cold cloth.

The blue hero sighed tiredly. "Well, I'm surely not going anywhere with this..."

Suddenly, a male voice sounded from behind him. "I completely agree with that."

If you were to ask Sonic, he would absolutely refuse the idea that he had screamed like a little girl even this time, but based on the fact that it were Shadow and Rouge—that had just entered the room through a mysterious giant ring—who heard it, it was a lost cause already.

"You and Knuckles teamed up on me, didn't you?!" Sonic pointed an accusing finger on his dark rival, the other male wondering what the hell was Sonic talking about while Rouge was deactivating the portal.

Rouge snickered as she hid the ring back into her bra. "I should probably be concerned about why are you partly undressed in my husband's house, but I am more interested in his current whereabouts. So...?"

Sonic completely ignored Rouge's comment and instead gestured towards the door. "He left just before your arrival."

"Well, I'm going to search for him. Don't do anything **_interesting_** while I am gone, alright?" The female bat winked at them before leaving the room and because Sonic knew what she was hinting at, he decided to ignore the comment; thinking about it would just bring him to over-thinking things again. Like if he and Shadow had...

No! He will not think about it!

_ You know..  _ Oh, Sweet Chaos. The voice from morning was back.

_ Just shut up! _

_ You were together for six months _ _ — _

_ I don't want to hear it! _

_ That's quite a long time _ _ — _

_ Be silent! _

_ You surely have already _ _ — _

_ NO! QUIET! _

_ Or maybe not. He was created 50 years ago. Maybe he's old-fashioned... _

_ Thanks Chaos... _

_ No! You surely have to ask him! It's really important to know if you're a virgin or not! _

Sonic blinked. Wait a minute...he might not be a virgin? He might have lost his virginity and not remember it?!

The hero was so deeply absorbed in his thoughts that he almost jumped out of a skin when Shadow unexpectedly touched his shoulder. Green eyes turned to gaze at the agent in surprise, the tiniest bit of concern visible in the other's expression. "Do you feel alright? You spaced out a little."

The blue hero had to bit his tongue not to ask the burning question that was currently occupying his entire mind. "Yeah, just...eh...thinking...about...stuff! Heh."

Shadow didn't look convinced, but he didn't pressure him. Instead the agent turned the conversation back to his leg. "Your ankle got worse."

"Yeah, Knuckles went to get me a cold cloth," Sonic explained, trying to keep focus on his ankle. On the horrible pain he felt in it—anything that would keep his mind occupied and away from anything regarding the dark hedgehog before him.

"Let me take a look."

Sonic cursed internally as Shadow proceeded with kneeling down and examining the seriousness of his injury, dark gloved fingers softly touching his swollen flesh.

And somehow Sonic found himself unable to look away from the male before him, the hero becoming hyper-aware of many things at once; those strong hands that touched him so tenderly, those sharp red eyes which felt like if they stared into his very soul, that strong slender body of a skilled fighter, that entrancing deep voice he could listen to all day long...

Realizing what kind of thoughts had just ran through his mind, Sonic blinked in shock, disbelief over his own actions filling him.

"Do you remember what a chaos healing is?"

Sonic snapped out of his trance and he stared in confusion at the male before him, trying to keep his thoughts clean of the 'sweet chaos, he is so hot' kind about the agent. "Um...no?"

The dark hedgehog sighed; he'd clearly hoped he wouldn't have to through the explanation again. "Alright, then, so...Are you aware that chaos energy enhances regenerative abilities of your body?"

"Really? So, that's why I heal faster than other people?" Sonic raised an eye-ridge questioningly, curious about this topic as usually anytime he broke something, it was alright just in half the time it took to heal for an ordinary person—and he definitely had more chaos energy in his body than a regular person.

"Yes, and the healing process can be sped up even more by direct manipulation with the chaos energy," Shadow continued to explain as he laid his hand on Sonic's swollen ankle, a slight prickling sensation soon coming to life there. "I can try to fix your ankle but you have to be cooperative."

"Sure thing! So what do I have to do?" he asked, eager to get rid of the painful injury; he could endure a lot of pain but he definitely did not enjoy it.

"Just relax. It might feel strange at first but try to not to flinch, alright?"

"Okay." Sonic nodded as he rested his back against the wall, trying to make his body relax as much as possible. The prickling sensation in his ankle soon become stronger and a strange feeling of pulling joined it. Shadow worked in silence and Sonic didn't dare to interrupt him; he really didn't want the dark hedgehog to accidentally blast his leg off or something.

"Alright—It's finished," the ebony hedgehog declared minutes later, the ankle not appearing as swollen as before and Sonic couldn't really even feel any pain anymore.

The hero experimentally moved his foot and found out he didn't feel even a _bit_ of pain. "Whoa, that's amazing! You totally have to teach me that!"

"I'll start to think about that once you manage a chaos spear," Shadow replied as he stood up, stretching his back briefly after having to stay in a hunched position for so long—and Sonic couldn't help but admire him for this short moment, his mind silently admitting that Shadow had a _really_ nice body.

"So, uh, maybe we should go to search for Rouge and Knuckles...They have been gone for quite a long time already," Sonic suggested as he put back on his sock and then his shoe, wanting to make his head focus on other things. "It surely is at least twenty minutes already."

Shadow frowned, realizing this as well. "Yes, we should. It's truly taking them  _ too  _ long."

~O~

"Bark, faster! We can't let ourselves get caught!" Nack hissed, looking around the corner to check if any of the Destructix was on watch. The polar bear behind him only grunted as the weight of the giant green emerald on his back was making it hard for him to even walk—let alone talk.

"Okay, it seems the air is—"

"Oh my! Who do we have here? Thieves? Your mothers didn't tell that stealing other people's stuff isn't nice?"

Team Hooligan stopped dead in their tracks and turned around, their gazes falling on Scourge, who was just casually standing there, leaning against the corridor wall and grinning widely.

Fang gulped at the sight. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid. "Retreat!"

But before either of them could even make even a first step, the green hedgehog was already blocking their way, smirking. "Why are you leaving so early? The party hasn't even started yet!" he announced with a wicked smile, cracking his knuckles to show he meant business—which the Hooligans understood clearly.

Fang scowled. He wanted to avoid fighting, but he obviously didn't have a choice here. However, it was still three against one—even if it was the infamous leader of Destructix. They had superiority in numbers. Therefore, Bark dropped the M.E. and copied the hedgehog by cracking his knuckles; Bean smiled crazily, a bomb appearing in his hand and Fang drew out his gun.

"You want a party?" Fang asked, smirking. "Then let's party!"


	20. Alliance

"I've got six and soon I'll have the Master as well," Fiona declared, crossing her arms over her chest. "Unfortunately, Tails doesn't have the seventh nor does he know where it is."

_ "That is no problem. I'll send some robot to retrieve it, _ _ "  _ a male voice sounded from the ear clip on her ear.  _ "Any other possible difficulties?" _

The female criminal frowned. "Well...it seems Rouge and Shadow got imprisoned for helping a certain blue hedgehog who you _ensured_ me was taken care of. Mind telling me how he got back into this zone?"

_ "Oh, Fiona, no need to use such tone on me! Sonic is still where he won't bother us! That Sonic you are talking about is not from this world." _

The young fox furrowed her eye-ridges in confusion. "Not from this world? Does that mean—?!"

_"No, no, dear! He he he. Zone cops still have_ ** _ **absolutely**_** _no idea about us! That Sonic you were talking about got here purely by accident. He still thinks he is in his own zone."_

"By accident?" Fiona asked in disbelief. How could someone not notice they were in the wrong zone?!

_ "Yes. That reminds me—! I need to introduce you to someone!..." _

There was a silence on the other side of the line until a very familiar voice could be heard.  _ "Pleasure to meet you, Fiona Fox. I believe the three of us will benefit from helping each other very much." _

Fiona's eyes widened in realization. That voice was..."Doctor Eggman? But...well...I guess you are a different one than the one that died here a year ago."

_ "Your guess is right,"  _ the Doctor confirmed.  _ "And I am from the same world as the annoying rodent that you mentioned earlier." _

"Oh, I see..." The young fox tapped her chin thoughtfully as she sorted through all possible scenarios why another person had been invited to help with their plan. "I suppose there is a certain reason for these unexpected changes...? "

_ "Well, based on how well is our plan coming along—why not aim a little bit higher? Why not conquer two worlds at once?"  _ the first voice asked, sounding pleased with this idea.

Fiona raised an eye-ridge in question—even though, the other two couldn't see her. "I don't see what is in this for me..."

_ "Oh, Fiona..."  _ The female fox scowled, him using this tone always made her fell like a small child for some reason.  _ "Wouldn't seeing Scourge bowing to you be more satisfying than just ruining his plan? I will give you any continent on the planet that you'll want! You will be its  _ ** _**queen** _ ** _! And then you can shove it in his face! Show Scourge who is in control now! You have to make him fell your revenge! Abandoning you like that! _ _ — _ _ To the hands of Suppression Squad! That is just unforgivable!" _

"You are right..." Fiona hissed, clutching her shoulder. "He will **_pay_** for it..."

_"He he. Yes, yes, he will..."_ the voice in her ear-piece affirmed, chuckling darkly.

Jerking in alarm, the young female snapped back into reality, whipping around when she heard shouting and heavy stomping coming outside of the restroom that she was currently in. Was there some kind of unexpected attack on the GUN? "It seems I'll have to—"

_"Oh, don't mind that."_ The order was laced with an undertone of glee and Fiona immediately knew her crime-partner knew something she didn't. _"Please, stay inside. You could get hurt if you tried to leave now."_

"What's happening?" Fiona asked as she heard another group of people run past the restroom; something serious was happening, there was no doubt about that.

_"Just a small distraction."_ The man on the other side of the line snickered. _"Anyway—is your warp ring still in a working order?"_

"Yes, it is," the female answered, immediately taking out a warp ring out of one of her hidden pockets. "Where am I supposed to go?"

_ "Back to my base." _

Fiona frowned at the choice, sensing there was something her ally wasn't telling her.

But she activated the ring nonetheless.

~O~

"So, did you find them?" Sonic asked through his gasps, leaning against a trunk of a tree for support. Why did he feel so tired just after a half-hour of running? It usually took a whole day to tire him. It was probably because of that weird Chaos Control again...

Shadow shook his head. "I had no luck either."

"The island isn't even so big! Where the heck could they be?" the blue hero huffed, trying to think of any place he might have forgotten to search.

"Let me think for a moment..." the other male said, trying to come up with a theory where the pair could be. "...Where is the Chaos Emerald?"

"Huh?" Sonic blinked in confusion, not really understanding why Shadow was asking him about the gem in the middle of their search for the couple. "I don't know. When I woke up, I didn't have it. Knuckles probably hid it somewhere."

"When you woke up?" Shadow asked, frowning.

"Well, I've fainted after I used the Chaos Control—You see, I've got a bit of problem using Chaos Control even with two Emeralds, so using just one probably drained me out more than it should have..."

The dark hedgehog's scowl deepened. "The consumption of your own chaos energy while using a Chaos Emerald should be negligible. You shouldn't be affected anyhow after using it."

The blue hero shrugged his shoulders. "Then it seems I'm using it wrongly. Nobody really explained to me how exactly to use Chaos Control properly. Knux was just like, 'Just think of the place you want to go!' and that was literally all the instructions he gave me."

Shadow only stared in disbelief. "So all this time you had _absolutely_ no idea what you were doing?"

"Exactly," Sonic nodded and the dark hedgehog wondered if the blue hero was just incredibly lucky he didn't screw anything up while using chaos techniques—it's called  ** _chaos_ ** for a reason—or if his body instinctively knew what it was supposed to do.

"Remind me that I want to teach you how to use Chaos Control properly after we find the Emerald."

"Sure thing. But why are we searching for the Emerald in the first place?" Sonic asked, raising a brow questioningly.

"It is possible to use an Emerald to teleport to a person. But this kind of Chaos Control works a little bit differently and consumes a much more power than the usual one," Shadow explained, earning himself a surprised look from Sonic with his answer.

"Wait a minute! Does that mean that all this time instead of chasing after Eggman I could have just teleported to him and kick his butt immediately?" Sonic threw his arms up into the air in disbelief. "Why hasn't anybody told me this until now?!"

The other male sighed. "If you tried that, then the Chaos Control would leave you drained of energy for next few hours."

"Oh."

"However, it seems that we won't even have the chance to try so. I didn't sense the Chaos Emerald anywhere in the house, so it's likely that the echidna has it."

"Then how are we going to find them?" Sonic scratched his head thoughtfully. "Because I don't really have any ideas. What about you?"

"Well, are there any—?" Shadow didn't have time to finish his sentence as the ground under their feet began to shake violently and the forest behind them opened, revealing three giant robots with too familiar logo on their chests.

Sonic stared, shocked. "But...You said Eggman is dead...?"

However, Shadow did not have any time to respond as just then, the Egg-bots attacked.

~O~

Tails had been feeling strange the entire day. But what was this strange feeling? He had no idea. But it felt like some kind of foreboding as it something serious was about to happen.

And then it came. Without any warning, one of the walls of his assigned laboratory exploded and the shock-wave of the explosion send him crashing into the opposite wall, all the equipment that wasn't secured flying the same way, barely missing him.

The young genius fell to the ground, gasping for the breath which had been knocked out of his lungs when he had been slammed into the wall. He took few shaky breaths and then slowly stood up, his legs suddenly feeling more like a jelly than flesh and bone. He made few hesitant steps, now close enough to look through the hole where the wall had used to stand.

And his eyes widened in shock at the scene before him.

There were **_dozens_** of robots running, shooting and destroying everything in their path. Whole hordes of GUN soldiers were trying to take them down but without much success. The armor of the robots seemed to be impenetrable by regular bullets and so the GUN soldiers had only explosives to take them down. But in the limited space the building provided, they hesitated to use them as doing so would definitely kill most of the people around in the process.

But this wasn't the first time Tails was seeing such a scene. Sonic had used to fights such a horde of Eggman's robots at least once a month; and all his memories about Sonic's battles with Doctor Eggman came crashing back at him as one robot turned his back to him and he could see all too familiar symbol that consisted of a head with a mustache, a wide smile and two blank spots for eyes.

Eggman's symbol.

But Dr. Eggman was dead! Why was there an _army_ of robots with his symbol on their back?!

"Ho ho ho! Run you fools! You have no chance on defeating the brilliant Doctor Eggman!"

In disbelief at whose voice he was hearing, the young fox slowly turned to look from where the voice was coming and for a brief moment he even stopped breathing—too shocked by the sight of the large shape of his brother's arch-nemesis hovering over the battlefield in his trademark gravity-defying vehicle.

Doctor Eggman...was alive...

"Prower!"

Alarmed, Tails whipped around to face the voice that had called his name. "Huh?"

The GUN Commander himself was standing before him, his formal uniform replaced with the GUN soldier attire, an automatic gun in his hands and three other men clad in the same clothes beside him. "You need to evacuate immediately! Johnson, make sure he gets out safely!"

The man of the name Johnson nodded curtly, his eyes watching the other three men leave to fight the Eggman's army before he turned to Tails. "Keep as close to me as possible. In case, I'll get wounded, leave me. Do you understand?"

The young fox nodded—even though he didn't plan on leaving Johnson to die if such situation were to occur. If anything happened he would help; he wanted to live up to his brother's example—and he surely wouldn't want to live with a thought that he let a man to die when he could have done something to prevent it.

As they traveled, he trailed after Johnson silently, the sounds of battle soon becoming only a distant echo in his ears, a sign that they were already mostly out of danger. But despite this he still couldn't shake off the feeling that some robot was about to jump at them at this very second.

And then it did.

Johnson immediately shoved him out of the way and thus causing him to smack his head against the wall. Tails briefly felt some kind of warm liquid trickle down his head, but did not give it much thought and instead tried to get up. But then his vision turned hopelessly blurry, his legs gave out under him and the last thing his ears heard, before he fell unconscious, was Johnson's terrified scream.

~O~

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Knuckles asked again, still not sure about the idea of his wife. "I mean—How can you be so sure that this plan will work out?"

"I'm sure you can convince her." The bat replied, smiling as she gave him a chaste kiss on cheek and then fly up to the roof of the house to hide from the view, winking at him in the process.

The guardian still didn't look very convinced but knocked on the pink door before him anyway—and just moment it swung open, revealing a familiar pink female. "Oh, hi, Knuckles! Long time no see! What are you doing here?"

"Well...you see...um..." Knuckles began hesitantly, not really sure what to say. But the pink hedgehog continued to gaze at him in interest, the afternoon breeze playing with the long blue flowery dress that she wore instead of her usual red dress; it was clear she had just returned from her vacation. "I need your help, Amy."

"Sure thing, Knuckles! What is it?" the pink heroine asked him, obviously eager to help—but Knuckles was still anxious about her reaction to his request.

"I need you to help me clear Sonic's reputation."

The young girl immediately perked up at hearing her beloved's name. "Sonic's reputation? Did something happen?"

Knuckles blinked in confusion. Amy wasn't aware in what predicament the blue hero currently was? "You don't know what has been happening around here?"

"No, actually. The island I had been staying on didn't really have any kind of connection to the rest of the world. The local people believe you need to just live in a moment and not focus on what is happening on the other side of the world..." Amy explained with a dreamy look in her eyes, clearly becoming swallowed in the memories of her beautiful vacation.

Knuckles blinked, surprised. Amy didn't know what had happened in those four months for which she had been gone? Well, that surely made things easier.

He cleared his throat to snap the female out of her trance, her jade eyes turning to him barely a moment later. "Alright, so here is the short version: Someone is pretending to be Sonic and has done a lot of horrible things. We need to prove Sonic is innocent. However, the GUN is on our tails and most people believe that Sonic is guilty. So, we need your help."

" _ WHAT _ ?! How can someone dare to dirty my Sonikku's reputation?! Show me the culprit and I'll teach him a lesson with my hammer!" Amy shouted, her hammer materializing in her hands in a blink of an eye, the female making a couple of swings with it to emphasize her point.

Knuckles immediately raised his hands in defense. "Please, calm down, Amy. The culprit is currently hiding and we need your help to find out where he is."

"What?" The pink female raised her eye-ridge questioningly. "But I have no idea where he is..."

"But the Chaotix know. I need you to ask them," the echidna explained—unsurprisingly earning himself a perplexed look from the female.

"Why don't you ask them yourself?"

Knuckles sighed. "My situation is kind of complicated. You see, both Rouge and Shadow are now chased by the GUN as well because they were helping Sonic. And because I'm Rouge's husband I'm not really trustworthy for the Chaotix as they now work with the GUN as well."

"Oh," Amy said and then fell silent, clearly thinking over what he had just told her; and Knuckles gave her the time, waiting until she spoke again. "I'll help you," she announced with determination in her voice. "— _ but  _ I have one condition!"

Knuckles nodded, willing to do whatever she demanded if it meant getting her as their ally. "Of course. What is it?"

"Take me to Sonic."

~O~

A couple of universes away, in Sonic's home-world, there was another Amy Rose who was as much desperate as her alter ego to see her love again. It had been two whole months since she had last seen him. She knew Sonic could take care of himself but she was really worried about him; it had never taken him this long to return home.

She was helping with the search for the blue hero as much as she could. But the search was fruitless; they couldn't find a trace of Sonic anywhere.

However, Tails had told her about the new finding of Sonic's location. The explanation involved a lot of words that Amy didn't understand but one thing was clear to her: Sonic was alive but stuck somewhere.

Most of Sonic's friends were now searching all around the world while Rouge and Shadow were looking for Doctor Eggman. Amy didn't really know the whole story, but it seemed that Eggman was missing and everyone was worried that he was working on another of his crazy plans to conquer Mobius; and without Sonic there, they needed to stop him before he could potentially carry out such plan.

Jade eyes turning to the stone pathway before her, Amy kicked a random stone on the road, sighing. She really hoped Sonic was alright...

She kicked the stone a bit further, raising her gaze to look where it would land, and then gasped for breath. There was a blue hedgehog standing in the middle of the road just ten yards from her—but because he had his back turned to her, he himself couldn't see her.

Amy halted in her spot, taking a deep breath to calm herself down as she looked over the male once again. She had already mistaken a lot of hedgehogs for Sonic but no matter how long she looked at this one, the color of his fur did not change. And Sonic was the only hedgehog with blue fur that she knew.

Therefore, it had to be him.

Lunging forward, she let out a shout of sheer happiness, a wide smile on her face as she ran towards the male.

The blue hedgehog turned to look at her when hearing her scream, his eyes widening in shock when they fell on her; and just a moment later the pink heroine was already holding him in a bone-shattering hug, practically squeezing the life out of him as she incoherently babbled about how much she had missed him.

However, she did not notice the frown that adorned the male's face for a second before he forced his expression to turn impassive—or how long it took him to return her embrace. Nor the way his tone lacked the usual cheerfulness that she was used to. "Yeah, nice too see you to, Amy."

She just continued to hug the blue hedgehog, unaware that she had just walked into a trap.


	21. Longing

"Watch out!" Sonic shouted, alerting Shadow just in time to escape the rocket that had been launched at him, however, because of this second of inattention, Sonic was only a moment later sent flying into a nearby tree himself. "Argh!"

"Down!" Shadow shouted from the other side of the battlefield and Sonic immediately switched from trying to get up to pressing himself to the ground, the missiles of the second robot barely missing his head before destroying the trees behind him.

"Whoa! That was close!"

Shadow did not bother with responding to his comment and instead focused all his attention on searching for the weak-point of the giant machines; they had been fighting for ten minutes already and so far they had only given the robots some scratches—which was odd as Eggman's robots usually didn't last more than three hits.

"Any ideas?!" Sonic shouted as he rushed past him, using a homing attack on the closer of the two robots.

The robot didn't even  _ flinch _ .

Growling, Shadow joined Sonic in attacking the robot, doing all he could, punch, kick, spin-dash and even throw chaos spears—which left a surprisingly deep marks on the robot's armor.

_Finally!_ he roared internally _,_ sharply turning to look at the cobalt hero beside him. "Chaos energy seems to be their weakness! I'm going to try to destroy them with a chaos blast so get out of here!"

"Roger, captain!" Knowing what kind of destruction could Shadow's chaos blast cause, Sonic saluted and then zipped off to get out of the danger zone.

And an explosion shook the ground violently just a moment later, the shock-wave of the blast so strong it blew some leaves of the surrounding bushes and even knocked Sonic off his feet.

Propping himself up on his elbows, Sonic gazed at the rising column of smoke, gulping nervously. _That was an unusually big one._ Frowning, the hero immediately scrambled back to his feet and ran back to the battlefield to check on the situation, hoping Shadow was alright.

Said hedgehog was kneeling on the ground, breathing heavily while his body shook like a leaf. Yards around him was only a burned ground and the remains of the killer machines.

"Shadow, are you alright?!" Sonic asked, placing a steadying hand on the other male's shoulder once he reached him.

The ebony hedgehog then looked up, a small smirk playing on his lips despite his clearly fatigued state. "No worries, hedgehog. I've just used a little bit more chaos energy than I should have."

Then Shadow slowly stood up, Sonic prepared to give a helping hand in case the dark hedgehog's body decided to give up on him—which, of course, did not escape the agent's attention. "I'm really alright, Sonic," the agent said. "Just exhausted—I'm surely not fighting anybody else today."

"If you say so..." the blue hero murmured, the worry still no leaving his body. He wasn't used to seeing Shadow so spent. "But are you sure—"

"SONIKKU!"

But before Sonic could even finish his sentence he was suddenly on the ground with Amy clutching on him like if her life depended on it. "I heard about the imposter thingy! You can count on me! I'll clear your name, Sonikku!"

"Er...thanks?" the blue hero responded, not really sure how to react to this statement or what Amy was even doing on the Angel Island. "...Mind getting of me?"

"Oh, sorry!" Amy giggled as she sprung to her feet, dragging the cobalt speedster along—and then resuming with squeezing the life out of him. "I'm just so happy to see you again, Sonic!"

"Yeah, it's nice to see you too," Sonic replied while returning the hug and trying not to pass out from a lack of oxygen. But because he found this to be a task above his capabilities, he looked at Shadow, planning to use on him the 'Please, help me!' look. But he forgot this intention the moment that he saw Shadow's expression, the ebony hedgehog burning holes into Amy's back with his glare.

Sensing it was about Amy being so close to him, Sonic used a little bit more of his strength than usually to break from the female's hug, making sure to hold her on an arm-length once that was done. "Not that it wouldn't be great to see you, Amy, but, um, how _exactly_ did you get here?"

"Knuckles and Rouge got me here." The pink female gestured to the duo that was just now arriving at the scene via the teleportation ring, Knuckles already out and Rouge halfway through.

"So, that's what you were doing all this time..." Sonic remarked as he gazed at the pair, trying to ignore Shadow's burning gaze which he felt on his back at the same time. "I-I think we should get going."

"Yeah, that's a great idea," Knuckles agreed somewhat tiredly, turning around to began his walk back to his and Rouge's house. Amy immediately tried to make Sonic to follow the echidna, but Sonic kept standing on the spot, his focus on Shadow. "Are you sure you don't need help?"

"Absolutely," Shadow hissed, crossing his arms over his chest in clear discontent.

"Shadow can handle himself, Sonic! Let's go!" the pink female announced, immediately dragging the reluctant hero away. Rouge silently watched the scene not missing how her colleague turned his glare from Sonic towards the oblivious female for a moment.

_ He looks almost... _ ** jealous ** _... _

The female bat tapped her chin thoughtfully and then the pieces finally clicked in her mind, causing a knowing grin to form on Rouge's features. Still smiling, she flew over to her colleague who was silently following after the hedgehog duo. "Hey, Shadow..."

The dark hedgehog sighed. He knew this tone _too_ well. "Yes, Rouge?"

"I have a theory what happened between you and the Big Blue after Holoska. Would you like to hear it?" the female asked, giving her colleague a knowing look.

Shadow could feel his body tense for a moment. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

The bat ignored his response, pretending she had actually heard 'yes' from him. "Let's first take a look at our evidence, shall we?" Rouge smirked as she started to go over the list in her mind. "You two have spent a tremendous amount of time together. I have barely seen you two separately in the last year—"

Shadow frowned, Rouge was sometimes too attentive. But it was to be expected—her job required it.

"—And we all know how much you hate other people. And considering how badly you have treated Sonic in the past, you suddenly becoming best buddies is really strange—"

The dark hedgehog sighed, his colleague just  _ loved  _ to beat around the bush.

"—And you despise physical contact, yet you don't even flinch anytime Sonic touches you. Also there was my party where—"

Shadow growled. "Rouge, just get to the point."

The female sighed somehow disappointedly; she understood he was tired of her game.

"...You two are together, aren't you?"

Shadow's angry expression fell and instead a tiny sad smile found its way to his face. "No, we are not."

But the female bat missed the smile and instead focused on trying to get him to confirm her theory, thinking the other was just trying to hide the truth from her. "Oh, come on, Shadow, I won't tell anybody—"

The dark hedgehog sighed. "As I said, Rouge. We are _not_ together." And then he looked at her with an expression Rouge had never seen before on his face.

It was one of defeat.

~O~

"Oh, Sonic, I've missed you so much!" Amy continued clinging to the arm of her beloved, talking about how much she had missed the hero and how they would go on a great date once this entire imposter thing was over and also about something else that Sonic failed to catch; his mind kept wandering to his dark rival who had yet to arrive into the house.

He knew why Shadow had glared at them like _that_ but he had no idea what he should do about it. Anytime he got a similar reaction from Amy, he just wouldn't care about it, already too used to her antics. But knowing it was Shadow whom he was hurting by being affectionate with someone else, made his stomach twist uncomfortably and made him feel so extremely... _bad_.

"Um, Amy, would you mind letting go of my arm, please?" The female looked at him in confusion, not understanding why she was asked such a strange request. Usually she would reply something along the way 'Of course, silly! You would run off again!', but the tone Sonic used and the expression on his face told her this was not an appropriate response this time.

"Of course, I wouldn't."

The blue hero's arm was finally free and he moved it a little to get the blood flowing into it again. Then he turned his body so he was facing Knuckles, who seemed to be preparing some kind of medicine from herbs. "Hey, Knux, where did you place the Chaos Emerald that I got here with?"

The echidna raised his gaze from his work, furrowing his red brows in confusion. "You didn't have any Emerald when you appeared here."

"What?!" the blue hero exclaimed loudly before he could stop himself. "But where is it then?"

The guardian shrugged his shoulders, for some reason not bothered by this. "No idea."

Sonic felt himself beginning to panic. He had lost the Emerald! But how? It must have disappeared somewhere during the Chaos Control. But why? It had never happened before!

"Why aren't you bothered in the slightest that the Chaos Emerald didn't get here with me?!" the cobalt hero asked, not understanding the echidna's calm attitude about this problem.

"My wife is being chased by GUN, my best friend is globally wanted criminal and the Master Emerald is in the hands of an enemy. Do you really think I have the capacity to worry about something else?" Knuckles growled, smashing the herbs into pieces with more force than necessary, startling a little bit Amy who was silently watching the exchange.

"Okay, I got it. You have a lot on your mind." The blue hero raised his hands in a placating gesture as a sign that he didn't want to start a fight. "I'm going to take a look what is taking Rouge and Shadow so long."

~O~

"Amnesia...?"

Nod.

"And does he know you two...?"

Nod.

"I...I..." Rouge just couldn't find the correct words. "...I'm so sorry to hear that, Shadow..." Rouge gave her friend a sympathetic look and laid her hand on his shoulder—a gesture to show she was there for him. "It has to be really hard for you."

"I'll manage," the dark hedgehog answered, his voice not indicating any kind of emotion. His expression was also slowly morphing into his usual emotionless mask. "It's pointless to dwell on things you cannot change."

"Sometimes it's better to get these things out of your system—if only by talking," the female responded, sighing. "But I have known you long enough to know that will not happen."

"You're right," Shadow confirmed, crossing his arms over his chest. "I would like to spend some time alone now if you don't mind."

"Of course, I don't," the bat responded, slowly starting to walk towards the house. "But I'm not sure about Big Blue."

The bat then took off, making the dark hedgehog wonder what she meant by that comment—well, until he saw Sonic running towards him.

Shadow wasn't really sure if he was happy about seeing the blue hero right now, but he was definitively happy to see that the pink nuisance wasn't all over him anymore.

Sonic stopped right before him, a smile on his face like usually. "So, need my help after all?"

Shadow grunted. So, the hero was thinking it took him so long just because he was tired? "Keep dreaming, hedgehog."

"A ball of sunshine as always I see," Sonic joked, grinning; if Shadow was treating him like usually, then it meant everything was alright.

Then there was a moment of silence as neither of them said anything. Shadow wasn't really in mood to talk and Sonic wasn't really sure what to say. But seeing that the other would not go away—even after being assured he didn't need any help (as he had hoped), the ebony agent sighed. "Do you need something?"

"Well...yeah! But I swear this time it's not my fault at all!" The blue hero placed his hands before him as if he expected to be attacked. "The Chaos Emerald somehow got lost during a Chaos Control."

"Somehow...got lost?" Shadow repeated, eyes wide, his voice full of disbelief. "How the hell do you lose an Emerald during a Chaos Control?!"

"I honestly have no idea! I had it when I used the Chaos Control but Knuckles says I didn't have it with me when he found me."

The dark hedgehog sighed, his next words laced with sarcasm. "Marvelous...Firstly Destructix, then GUN, then Dr. Eggman's robots suddenly showing up and now lost Chaos Emerald. Just marvelous..."

"Yeah..." the blue hero sighed, rubbing his head quills sheepishly. "I'm sorry for causing all of you guys so much trouble..."

Shadow shook his head, his anger vanishing from his features for the most part. "Don't be. Most of this would probably have happened even without your involvement."

"No, it's my fault! You guys are being chased by the GUN because of helping me and it was _me_ who lost your Emerald!" Sonic's voice was gradually getting louder as he finally realized the seriousness of the situation. "You all are in danger because of—"

Suddenly, his peach shoulders were grasped firmly, Shadow now giving him a look that made Sonic want to flinch away from the other's gaze.

"Let me make something clear, Sonic," Shadow started, taking a deep breath. "If we didn't want to be here, we _wouldn't_ be here anymore—You can be sure we won't leave you even if things get worse," the dark hedgehog continued, his red eyes locking with the green eyes of the other. "And you can count on me to stay with you until the end."

Sonic was taken a little back by the declaration—probably because something like this was coming from Shadow, a guy that had hated his guts for years—as he was still coping with the fact that the dark hedgehog's attitude towards him had changed. "Whoa, thanks, Shads. That—that means a lot to me."

And, suddenly, Shadow found himself being hugged, completely startled by this action. He hadn't received such a display of affection from the blue hero in quite some time and he really wasn't sure how to to react—being it anyone else he would have probably shoved them away for invading his personal space.

But this was Sonic.

Shadow knew that he was about to go completely against his plan to keep distance from the blue hero, but he didn't care. His red-striped arms wrapped around the blue body tightly, savoring the amazing feeling of holding his beloved in his arms and completely ignoring a small voice in his mind that kept telling him this was a wrong thing to do.

Because the hug made him feel as if nothing had changed.

After finding out Sonic didn't remember a thing about their relationship Shadow was devastated. Even though outside it couldn't be seen, inside of him there was a constant turmoil of emotions.

Firstly, there was an anger. Once he found that someone who loved him—despite all bad things he had done—was suddenly torn away from him, made him want to murder whoever that was responsible for Sonic's amnesia.

Secondly, there was loss. It was a horrible feeling that Shadow hated the most. Despite being able to see Sonic for almost every day, he couldn't shake off the feeling of loss. Part of Sonic was gone. The part that loved him was clearly gone and, as it seemed, it didn't plan on coming back. It made him feel as if he had lost Sonic completely.

Thirdly, there was guilt. He had feeling it was somehow his fault that Sonic had disappeared and lost his memories in the first place.

Because he hadn't protected him.

Because he had **_failed_** him.

Shadow was sure that was where the fourth emotion come from.

The fourth emotion was longing.

He longed to touch Sonic—to make sure he was physically there and not just a product of his imagination. If Sonic remembered their relationship, it would be easy to fulfill this need—Shadow would hug him, kiss him or just hold his hand. Sonic would then tease him about it, call him 'cuddly' or some other overly-sentimental term but he surely wouldn't complain.

However, this Sonic didn't remember anything and he had clearly stated that he wanted their relationship to stay on the 'friends' level. So, Shadow couldn't really do much without possibly startling the blue hero.

But with Sonic in his arms all these kind of thoughts disappeared and all was left was the warm feeling in his heart.

Well, at least until the blue hedgehog decided to pull away from the hug. The hug had lasted only five seconds—which was probably socially the most appropriate amount of time—but Shadow really hoped it would last longer.

"Really thanks, Shads." Sonic gave the dark hero his usual blinding smile. "So, do you want to head towards Knux's house to rest or do you still have some energy to race with me?"

"Neither, faker," the dark agent answered, earning a raised eye-ridge from the blue hero. "I want to spend some time alone."

"What? But what if Eggman's robots show up again? Or maybe the GUN?" Sonic asked, leaving the last question unasked:  _ Are you strong enough to go on your own? _

"I'll be around. If anything happens, I'm sure Rouge will hear it even from the house," Shadow answered, hoping his reassurance would be enough to make Sonic not be as adamant as usually.

But judging by Sonic's expression, today was one of his usual days. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am." The dark hedgehog crossed his arms over his chest, emitting the 'I will not change my mind' aura.

"One hundred percent sure?"

Shadow rolled his eyes; Sonic always ignored the atmosphere. "Yes."

"Absolutely—?"

"Sonic, if you continue this, I'll tie you up to that tree and you'll spend the whole night there." Shadow gestured to a random tree and then raised an eye-ridge in question. "Are we clear?"

"Yeah, totally." Sonic raised his hands in gesture of surrender, a big smile on his face. "I'll go back to the others now. Have fun!"

The blue hero then zipped off, seemingly gone; but Shadow knew the blue hero would be back in few minutes, secretly following him to ensure he would be alright. But until that happened—he could enjoy his moment of peace.

Somewhere behind him a branch snapped and he could hear a silent curse. It seemed that Sonic was quite impatient today. Usually, he would wait at least two minutes until he went back. Sighing, Shadow shook his head. Some things never changed.

"Sonic, you are an awful at sneaking around."

There was a complete silence and then Sonic peeked out from behind a nearby tree. "How did you know?"

"You're too loud," Shadow answered and jumped up on the nearest tree, settling down on one of its branches, a small smile on his face. "I'm going to sleep now if you don't mind."

"Oh, sure thing! Good night!" The blue hero then ran off again—but Shadow knew he would return again.

Even if he had to go through hell, Sonic would always return.


	22. Special No.2

He had been stuck in this hell-hole for so long...

He looked at the door of his cell, those strong metal bars that kept him in this tiny room which he was slowly going crazy from...

It had been already four months since he had woken up here.

It were the worst four months of his life. He would much rather get all of his bones broken than suffer another day in this place. He sighed as he run his hands through his quills that couldn't be seen because of the strange illusion that kept his true appearance hidden from the other people that inhabited this strange place.

The illusion that he just couldn't figure out how to turn off.

The illusion that kept him stuck in this place.

An illusion of a female fox.

Of a female fox whose word no one trusted in this place apparently.

Out of frustration he hit one of the metal walls of his cell hard, the action sending thousands of pain signals shooting through his system, alerting him that this wasn't a wise thing to do. However, he did not pay it any mind and instead he hit the wall again and again and again... His hits echoing loudly through his cell for a minute until his hands hurt too much to continue.

He let himself fall to his knees and he looked at his bloodied hands that hurt like if all bones in them were broken—maybe they were, who knew. However, he didn't care about this as the only thing that mattered at the moment was the pain—the only sensation that was keeping him from completely giving up.

Because if you felt pain, there was no place for other sensations or emotions; the pain flooded his whole mind, it kept him alert, it kept him in a fighting mode.

It kept him from giving up.

He tried to move his hands, flexing his fingers to see if they were still working. They were.

He wasn't even sure if he was happy about that. He just stared at his hands, wondering how it was possible they hadn't even made a dent in the wall. Anytime he hit any of Eggman's robots it always left a dent in their armor, yet when he hit this wall it didn't do anything.

Maybe it was because of the golden thing clasped around his neck...He heard some of the other occupants complain about it. How was it called again? Control...control collar?

He wasn't sure if that was what they were called but he was aware of what was their purpose—to take special abilities from people.

He tugged at the collar harshly but it stayed on his neck. He hated this thing. With this thing around his neck he couldn't use his extraordinary speed—his very nature.

...And neither his great physical strength as it seemed.

Without this he would be able to escape this place. If this thing wasn't around his neck, he would have his speed. If he had his speed, he would be able to climb walls. If he was able to climb walls, he would be able to get to the exit that was fifty feet of the ground because of this weird **_double gravity_** thing which was going on around here!

He screamed into his hands out of frustration. Oh,  _ Chaos _ , how he hated this place!

What had he done to deserve this?! Why did the universe hate him so much?!

He took a deep breath to calm himself down, letting his hands fall into his lap.

He just wanted to go home.

He just wanted to see his friends again.

He just wanted to see Shadow again.

Shadow...

He brought his legs up to his chin and then embraced them with his arms. He deeply missed the dark hedgehog. He often caught himself thinking about his lover. What could Shadow be doing now? Was Shadow searching for him? Was Shadow missing him?

...or did he decide to move on with his life and completely forgot about him?

He shook his head.  _ No, Shadow surely wouldn't do that. _

A tiny voice of doubt appeared at the back of his mind.  _ How can you be so sure? _

_ Because he-...well...uh... _

_ You can't. _

_ No...No, I can't,  _ he admitted, his mood dropping even more.

_ You were gone for months already. It would be foolish of him to wait for someone that might never come, don't you think? _

_ Well...yeah... _

The voice then fell silent, leaving him to his own haunting thoughts.

Maybe he would never return home.

Maybe he would never see his friends again.

Maybe this place was where he would spent the rest of his days.

The rest of his miserable lonely life.

After all, no one trusted a thing he said. The other prisoners around here treated him like trash and guards—zone cops as other inhabitants called them—weren't much better; though they usually only insulted him and didn't attack him like some prisoners.

He was really curious what had this 'Fiona Fox' person done to piss off so many people.

Placing his chin on his drawn up knee, he sighed deeply, his ears lying flat against his head. Was this really his fate? Spending the rest of his life in this horrible place? Suffering for actions of someone else?

He closed his eyes, hoping that the next time he would open them, he would see his own room—which would mean all of this was just a horrible dream...

But that did not happen.

He gritted his teeth, trying to keep himself from crying—he had to stay strong; there was still chance he might get out.

_ Do you really believe that? _ _ t _ he doubtful voice asked, returning from whatever darkest corner of his mind it had chosen as its residence.

_..._ _ Yes, yes, I do.  _ He took a deep breath _.  _ _ Because I am Sonic the Hedgehog and you should know better than anyone else that I am capable of the impossible. _

_Well, those things obviously weren't impossible if you managed to do them..._ the voice responded and then fell silent once more, leaving him alone in his cell to once again remind him that he was absolutely alone in this. There was **_no one_** to help him.

And his mood fell even more when the possibility that the escape from this hell-hole truly might be impossible flooded his whole mind one more time.

And so he started to chant 'I'll get out of here' over and over again, hoping it would somehow become true.


	23. The Oblivious, The Self-centered And The Observant

In Sonic's home-world, Tails sighed as he let himself sink into the soft cushions of his couch. He had been looking for his brother for three days straight but without any success. The young genius closed his eyes, feeling extremely tired. Just few hours of sleep and then he would go and look for Sonic again...

But before he could fall asleep completely, the front door came flying open and a familiar voice of his pink friend—so loud it would surely wake up even dead—startled him awake.

"Tails! Tails! Sonic's BACK!"

As if with a wave of magic wand, Tails suddenly felt himself being filled with energy the moment these words reached his ears, the young fox appearing by the door, where Amy, with the assumed Sonic by her side, stood.

"It's really you..." he breathed, for a moment just staring to ensure the other was no mirage cooked up by his tired sleep-deprived mind. However, when nothing of the sort happened, he took the final step, lunging forward to hug the taller Mobian firmly, tears of joy beginning to roll down his cheeks. "Oh, thank Chaos, Sonic! You're alright! You're alright..."

"Hey, there, buddy..." Tails could feel how the other embraced him back. "I'm home."

And as Tails continued to hug the blue hedgehog, blinded by his pure joy of seeing his best-friend again, failed to notice he didn't feel quills on the hedgehog's back but instead a soft short fur that had no reason to be there.

It took Tails two whole minutes to let go of the blue and peach body, a giant smile on his face as he continued to gaze at the cobalt Mobian, wiping his tears with the back of his hand. "I'm so glad you're back! We've searched everywhere for you!"

The currently-masked-under--Sonic-guise Fiona grinned as she ruffled the fox's head-fur, knowing this was a certain habit between Sonic and Tails, her tone cheerful as it should be when she spoke in Sonic's voice again, "Of course, I am, buddy! I can do anything, after all!"

The young genius laughed happily. "I know! But where have you been all this time?"

Amy immediately perked up as well at hearing this question. "Yeah! Where have you been?"

"I got stuck in Blaze's dimension for some time," Fiona just waved a hand to gesture it was not important, hoping they wouldn't question this matter anymore. "Has anything interesting happened while I was gone?"

"Well, Doctor Eggman got abducted," Tails stated without hesitation.

"What?!" Fiona voiced loudly, faking her surprise to hearing this information even though she was well aware of the fact already. "By who?"

"Well, we're not quite sure yet. The soldier that was guarding him said it was by someone that looked just like him, so—" the young genius suddenly stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening as if he had just realized something. "It had to be Nega!" left Tails' mouth just a moment later.

_ Crap _ _ , Fiona _ i nternally cursed at the exclamation; Tails had just made a connection he shouldn't have. But the duo mistook the look of surprise on the Fake Sonic's face for the surprise of learning that Dr. Nega abducted 'his' arch-nemesis.

Fiona shook her head, sighing theatrically. "Great. That just means more _trouble_..."

"Trouble or not trouble!" Amy latched onto the criminal's arm, a wide smile on her face. "He surely won't be any match for you! Right, Sonikku?"

Peach lips pressed into a thin line, Fiona trying not to show her distaste about being so close with the pink female; she felt uneasy around any version of Amy since meeting the unhinged Rosy the Rascal.

"That's right," she affirmed, forcing a perfect smile on the guise's face that looked as convincing as if the real deal was making it.

Amy smiled. "That's great! We'll go on a date with Sonic now! That's alright with you, right, Tails?"

_Did you just—?_ The imposter looked in disbelief at Amy and then at Tails who seemed absolutely shocked by the question as well. After all, how could Amy dare to even suggest dragging Tails' best-friend off now when he had just showed up after missing for two whole months?

She took a deep breath to suppress the desire to give some snide remark about Amy's behavior and instead... "I think I should stay with Tails for some time, Amy." ...in more Sonic-like fashion.

The pink hedgehog turned in shock to the criminal that she still thought was her beloved hero. "What?! But—!"

_Chaos, you only really think about yourself, don't you?_ Fiona forced her frustration not to show on the guise's face and instead put on a slightly pleading look. "Amy,  ** _please_ ** ," she said, stressing the 'please' as much as he could, knowing how big trouble the pink hedgehog had with refusing her hero's requests.

"I..." Amy looked somewhat uncertain. "...Alright. But we'll go on a date as soon as possible! You hear me?"

"Of course," the criminal answered, greatly looking forward to finally getting away from the pink female. "...You probably should head home, Amy, it's starting to get dark," she added to ensure the other would realize it the time to go.

Amy looked outside through the open door, glancing at the sun that was now almost completely gone behind the horizon. "Oh, boy, it really is!" Amy seemed surprised by this. "Well, I guess it's truly time for me to go! Bye, Sonic! Bye, Tails! See you soon!" she said, giving them a small wave as she left the house.

And just like that she was gone.

Fiona sighed, not able to resist murmuring the words 'annoying brat' under her breath as she closed the main door.

"What was that? I didn't hear you," Tails said, thinking the other had something to say to him.

"Oh, nothing—"Fiona cursed internally at her own actions;she needed to control herself more, she almost blew her cover. "I...I'm going to a bed now! ...if you don't mind?"

"Sure thing not!" Tails answered, obviously concerned for her—well, his _best-friend's_ state—because of being gone for so long. "Rest as much as you need!"

She nodded, making the guise smile softly. "Good night, buddy."

"Good night, Sonic."

Fiona then proceeded with going upstairs, where she knew Sonic's room was, and Tails then went on to tell the rest of Sonic's friends the news, not a once occurring to either of them that Sonic would **_never_** **willingly** agree to go on a date with Amy.

~O~

Fiona yawned as she slowly got up from Sonic's bed where she had slept the previous night. She sighed as she put on her sneakers that looked just like Sonic's but apart from the hero's were specially modified to give her the ability to run thrice as fast as her usual speed; it was still nothing in comparison to Sonic's speed but it helped her to impersonate the blue speedster so it was undoubtedly useful.

She checked herself in a big mirror—which was hung on one the walls—to see if she still looked as the blue hero. She turned around a few times, checking from various angles that the illusion was still perfect in all places; the illusion itself was produced by a device strapped to her left wrist and it was impossible for other people to see the device. Plus she also had a chip on her throat that allowed her to speak like Sonic anytime the illusion was active.

Of course, that made her job many times easier—though still difficult as the biggest problem about impersonating Sonic was obviously the blue speedster's personality. Most of her knowledge of the blue hero's personality came from the Prime Sonic but she sometimes had to use Scourge as a reference point due to having no idea how would the blue hero react in certain kinds of situations. That, of course, wasn't the greatest thing to do as some of Scourge's personality traits were a complete opposite of his Prime version—though one good thing about Sonics was that they all shared the same body-language, so that was quite easy thing to copy for her after being with Scourge for so long.

The criminal made a last check in the mirror and then left Sonic's bedroom, heading to find Tails, determined to get all the information that she could out of the fox kid. Assuming she would most likely find the young inventor in his workshop, she headed there and in two minutes she was standing at its door, Tails turning from his work on his laptop to greet her with a big smile on her face when he saw her approaching. "Good morning, Sonic. You're up early today!"

"Morning, buddy," she responded in Sonic's voice as she walked over to him. "So, any news about Doctor Eggman's whereabouts?"

"None," Tails shook his head. "But...I had a bad feeling since he disappeared. It surely is something big if Nega had gone so far as abducting him."

The criminal grinned internally. This was her chance—! "Probably. Let's think what he could be up to—Has any of the Chaos Emeralds gone missing by any chance?"

"Well, we still have the four you've found earlier," Tails started, counting the Emeralds on his fingers as he tried to remember all of them. "Shadow has one and the last two are still nowhere to be found."

_Five out of seven? Not bad_ _. Fiona_ forced a worried expression on the guise's face. "What about the Master Emerald?"

"Knuckles hasn't said anything so it's probably still on the Angel Island," Tails replied, turning his gaze towards his laptop. "I'm currently trying to come up with program that would make my chaos radar more efficient so we can find the last two—We can't let Eggmans get their hands on even one of them."

"No doubt." She nodded as she believed Sonic would have. "So, keep working! I'm going for a run—who knows! Maybe I'll accidentally bump into the Emeralds!" Fiona laughed heartily and turned to the door, planning to leave.

Well, until Tails' worried voice stopped her in her tracks. "W-when will you return?"

Slowly she turned towards the fox, the bright smile still on the illusion's face. "In a few hours or so. Don't worry! I'll be home by noon! See ya later, Tails!"

Fiona let her expression relax once out the fox kid's view; she was honestly getting tired of being so positive about everything all the time. Grumbling, she walked over to the front door and opened it.

And suddenly she was tackled to the floor by a certain pink hedgehog.

_ Not you again! _ _ She _ frowned, trying to keep her voice low even though all she wanted to do was to scream at the pink female; she was honestly starting to wonder how big Sonic's patience had to be to put up with this on daily basis for years without snapping  _once_ . "Amy? What are you doing here?"

The pink hedgehog stood up, giggling. "It's our date today, silly!"

_ Oh, crap.  _ The imposter frowned even more. "Amy, I don't think—"

"Let's get going, we can't waste anymore time!"

Amy's hold on Fiona's arm was inescapable without using brute force so the female criminal had no other choice than to let herself be dragged by the other girl if she did not wish to ruin her mission.

And, somehow, she knew this would be the longest day of her life.

~O~

Fiona decided that her assumption had been very wrong. This wasn't the longest day of her life. This was the longest day of  ** _anyone's_ ** life. Amy had dragged her all around the city. To a restaurant, to a shopping center, to a park—the list just went on! And all the time she was chattering about utter nonsense that didn't interest Fiona in the slightest.

She was here to get the freaking Chaos Emeralds, not to date Amy!

And not only was the pink female unbelievably annoying, she was all over her all the time! She used any opportunity available to be affectionate with her, which meant lot of touching and kissing—luckily, only on a cheek—for her. She might look like a male at this very moment, but underneath all _that_ there was a strictly straight female so **_such_** affectionate gestures from another girl definitely weren't pleasurable at all...

The imposter looked at the pink female, who was still rambling about something, not really caring enough to focus on the words leaving Amy's mouth.

_ Come on! Think of something! _ _ Fiona  _ sea rched her brain for ideas that would get her out of this place.

"—so I said—" Amy continued her ramble, not noticing the inner battle of her companion.

Fiona huffed in annoyance as she couldn't think of a way how to get out of this without angering the pink female. And she was already fed up with this date so she did the first thing that came to her mind.

She stood up abruptly, forcing a look of horror on the guise's face as she uttered a panicked shout of "Chaos, I left the oven on!" and then she was gone.

Amy stared in confusion at the back of her retreating companion, a realization dawning on her just few seconds later. "You don't bake!"

And so the pink female started chasing after the blue hedgehog even thought she knew there was no chance of her catching the other.

~O~

"Gah...that girl..." Fiona wheezed as she tried to catch her breath after such a fast departure. She didn't have as much stamina as the real Sonic so running from Amy that was used to chasing the blue hero _all the time_ proved to be quite an exhausting task.

Chaos, why couldn't Sonic have interest in _motorcycles_ or something?

"Already out of breath after such a short chase?" a voice sounded not far from his right, mocking him. "Have you been lazying around for those past weeks or what?"

Fiona sharply turned around, coming face to face with none other than Shadow the Hedgehog of this world leaning against a trunk of a tree.

_ Damn, not you. Fiona _ immediately straightened herself, forcing a grin on the illusion's face. "I guess I'm little out of shape."

The dark hedgehog raised an eye-ridge at the remark. The imposter cursed internally. Was the dark hedgehog already suspecting something? Because if he was anything like Shadow of the other world—which was, unfortunately, very likely as this and the other world seemed to be awfully similar—then even the tiniest suspicion on the dark hedgehog's side could land her in a lot of trouble.

It had taken the other Shadow just a week to find certain flaws in her acting that confirmed that she truly wasn't the real Sonic and once the dark hedgehog was one-hundred percent sure that he wasn't fighting former ally he became a lot more aggressive and his attacks became  ** _much_ ** stronger. From that point onward she made sure that Scourge had always been with her any time she could possibly run into the agent; apart from her, Scourge was capable of taking Shadow on quite easily while she herself would most likely end with all of her bones broken just one minute into a battle.

However, all of her worries disappeared just moment later as Shadow let out an amused snort instead of an accusation.

The imposter exhaled a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding.  _ Good. Shadow believed it... _

"Well, I hope you enjoyed your little vacation, hedgehog, because the Doctor has gone missing while you weren't here, and he still has to be found. But now when you are here," Shadow said, smirking, "I'll gladly leave the search for him to you."

"And I was already looking forward to spending a nice time without Doctor Eggman bothering me! Oh, well, it seems that won't happen..." Fiona responded, missing the slightly surprised expression that flashed over Shadow's face at hearing her use Doctor's full title and not some kind of nickname like Sonic always did.

"...Mind sharing where have you been all this time anyway?" the dark hedgehog asked, slightly curious.

Fiona just repeated what she had told Tails and Amy earlier. "Just stuck in Blaze's dimension. It took me some time to find a way back."

"Hmm..." The dark hedgehog was now watching her with a strange expression on his face that made the imposter feel uncomfortable. But she didn't let it show

"What's up with that look? Is there something on my face?"

"It's nothing," Shadow answered, shaking his head. "Anyway, care for a race? I promise I'll go easy on you this time." The smirk was back on the dark hedgehog's face now.

The imposter shook his head. "Nah, I'm too tired. We'll have to race some other time."

The reply earned him a scowl from the other but Fiona dismissed it as non-important. Firstly, she wouldn't even be able to run even on half of the speed Shadow was capable of and that surely could bring some suspicion. Secondly, the less time he spend with any of Sonic's _observant_ friends the better.

The dark hedgehog crossed his arms over his chest, the scowl on his face getting bigger. "Sonic the Hedgehog declining a chance to race. That's definitely not something I ever expected to happen."

"Life brings many surprises." Fiona grinned, shrugging her shoulders as she half-turned to indicate she was planning to leave. "See you later, Shadow."

And then she started to walk away. The red eyes continued to watch her intently until she disappeared amongst the trees but even after that the feeling of being watched stayed with her longer than she would have liked.

~O~

"I'm home, Tails!" Fiona shouted as Sonic always did when she entered the heroes' house, hoping the fox kid was around.

And in the next second she was almost knocked to the ground by _crying_ Tails that had appeared out of the kitchen.

Fiona was very confused. For what reason on Mobius was Tails crying?

"Tails, what is wrong?" she asked as she knelt down to be on the same eye-level as the fox kid, making sure to keep her voice low and soothing; from the looks of it this Tails was younger than his Prime self so she needed to act accordingly.

The young fox continued to sob quietly as he raised his gaze to meet hers. "You h-have been gone f-for a whole day and I th-thought something m-might have happened to y-you again..." the young kid confessed, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Fiona looked outside the window and the approaching darkness outside confirmed Tails' words. She could feel an unexpected pang of guilt in her chest. For some reason she felt honestly bad about not keeping her word and so the next words that left her weren't another lie but a sincere confession. "I'm really sorry, Tails. Amy had dragged me around all day..."

"Just...call me the next time or something...alright?" Tails looked up at him with big eyes and Fiona found herself unable to refuse.

"I will."

~O~

Fiona stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her **_real_** reflection that was now visible due to the fact she had turned off the masking device just a moment ago. She also locked the bathroom door to ensure that she wouldn't be unexpectedly disturbed by Tails.

The young female ran a hand over her face, the heavy feeling of guilt still lingering in the pit of her stomach.

What was wrong with her? Why was she suddenly feeling bad about Tails? She shouldn't be feeling anything about the fox kid! He should be just another unimportant puppet in her plan! Like everyone else before! What was so special about this Tails...?

The fox slowly raised her gaze, staring at her mirror image. She knew it was her in that mirror, but it felt like a completely different person to her now. Was pretending to be the blue hero rubbing off on her? Was her pretended care turning into a real care?

The female shook her head. Obviously pretending to be someone else for four months could affect you a lot.

Fiona sighed as she looked at herself for the last time and then switched on the masking device, her image in the mirror replaced by the one of the blue hero immediately.

Hopefully, if everything went as planned tomorrow, this would be the last time she had to look at that face.

~O~

_ Things are going way too easy, _ _ Fiona _ thought the following morning as she checked one more time that those tiny devices which she had just sticked to the Chaos Emeralds were in working order. She put the gems back into a safe as she didn't really need to do anything else with them—the devices would activate in a few minutes and teleport the Chaos Emeralds to Dr. Nega's hideout without any other help from her.

She snorted in amusement. Getting the information of the Chaos emeralds' whereabouts from Tails was a piece of cake. And he didn't even think it was strange that his brother had suddenly forgotten where they kept the Emeralds!

"What's so funny?"

The imposter sharply turned around at the familiar voice that definitely didn't belong to Tails.

_ Oh, not you again. _ _ Fiona _ frowned internally—but the expression on her—Sonic's—face in the real world turned neutral. "Shadow? What brings you here?"

"I need to have a word with  _ you _ ," the dark hedgehog answered, giving him a look that made a chill run up Fiona's spine; something about the dark hedgehog's aura screamed at her, she better start running.

_Now._

"Sorry, but I promised Amy that I'll go with her watch a new movie so it's not a really good time to have a conversation." She tried to walk past the dark agent, but she was stopped by Shadow roughly seizing the hold of her wrist.

"And I think it's a great time for this conversation," Shadow leaned closer, his face not giving away any emotion now. "So tell me,  _ faker _ ..."

Fiona could feel another chill run up her spine as she stared at the dark hedgehog. T _hat look!_ It looked exactly as the one of the other Shadow before he—

One of the dark agent's hands was suddenly on her throat, the grip strong enough to hold her in place but not to cut off her air supply. She reflexively reached up to grab the assaulting hand and try to pry it away from her neck. However, it proved to be impossible as she had only one hand that she could use—Shadow was still tightly holding the other one—to try to free herself; and, moreover, Shadow had always had much bigger strength than her. She could only stare at the other, whose red eyes, shining with rage, bore into her.

"... _Who_ are you and _why_ are you pretending to be Sonic?"


	24. Fox Hunting

_I'm so screwed..._ _Fiona_ thought just as the hand around her throat tightened a bit more, the dark hedgehog obviously getting impatient.

"So? Will you give me the answer willingly or do I have to force it out of you?" Shadow asked, the force of his hold on the blue wrist getting bigger with each passing second, the gloved fingers painfully digging into the peach flesh now. Fiona tried to endure the painful sensation, gritting her teeth so she wouldn't scream, determined not to give the dark hedgehog the satisfaction of hearing her holler in pain.

But then something in her wrist snapped and at the same moment the dark hedgehog forcefully twisted her arm, forcing the unknown 'something' into an unnatural position that would have been painful even under normal circumstances.

She screamed both in pain and surprise.

Shadow smirked smugly at hearing the anguish cry from the other. "Still not willing to talk?"

Fiona glared at her captor, baring her teeth in the process as well. "Go to hell!"

The dark hedgehog frowned and the masked criminal suddenly found herself pressed against the wall, the hand on her throat now choking her. "Wrong answer."

But despite the fact that she was being very much strangled by Shadow currently, Fiona was not afraid. She knew that Shadow wouldn't kill her—she hadn't answered his questions yet, after all.

...and the fact that she could see over Shadow's shoulder a certain golden fox creeping up to them with a baseball bat in his hands was surely _comforting_ as well.

~O~

Tails had had a bad feeling since he had opened the front door and found Shadow standing there with the most unnerving expression that he had ever seen on the dark hedgehog's face.

Then Shadow had asked where Sonic was. Tails had told him, the thought of doing otherwise not even passing through his mind, thinking that Shadow was surely there just for a talk. The dark hedgehog had then immediately gone to talk to Sonic, the young genius deciding that he would leave the two alone so they could discuss whatever they needed to; but just a minute later pain-filled scream reached his ears, and, without even thinking about it, Tails ran to investigate what was happening.

The sight of his assumed best-friend getting strangled by the dark hedgehog was shocking—for a moment Tails could only stand and stare—but that hadn't stayed like that for long. Just a second later, he was filled with a suffocating dread, the possibility of losing his brother again completely clouding his mind for a moment and thus shutting down his rational thinking.

It wasn't until a minute later that he snapped out of the haze and saw that he was swinging a bat to strike Shadow.

But it was too late to stop it now.

~O~

Shadow's ears perked up, the dark agent finally becoming aware of the sounds behind him. But it was too late—at that very moment the bat painfully collided with the side of his head, making Shadow stumble backwards with a surprised shout, his hands letting go of Fiona in the process.

Now free, Fiona didn't waste any time as she lunged forward—Tails' blow might have been strong but it definitely wasn't strong enough to knock out Shadow who was used to receiving much stronger hits from his opponents—being it either a Dr. Eggman's robot or Sonic with his insanely strong kicks. And even though her own kicks might be much weaker than those two, she didn't need much strength for the attack that she had in plan—as it was the dirtiest and simplest trick how to get a much stronger _male_ opponent to their knees.

A blue leg shot upward and thanks to Shadow's disorientated state that majorly affected his reflexes—and thus making him unable to block or dodge the attack—the imposter was able to deliver a rather strong kick to the other's crotch.

As any other male would do, the dark hedgehog fell to his knees with a loud shout, his hands reflexively moving to cover the assaulted spot.

"Ha! That's what you deserve,  _ bastard _ !" She sneered at him—the expression appearing quite odd on Sonic's face—before breaking into a run, using the few minutes that Shadow would need to recover to her advantage to get a head-start; she ran out of the house in a blink of an eye, leaving the confused fox and the injured hedgehog behind her.

~O~

Shadow cursed under his breath; he should have expected such a dirty trick from the imposter. Even though thanks to him having a Mobian-like anatomy none of his male-specific organs were actually hurt as they were safely hidden inside his body—but it was still a _freaking_ kick to a groin! Even female would be in immense pain if her pelvis was so brutally kicked!

The dark hedgehog groaned as he slowly stood up, feeling slightly dizzy and his legs shaking a bit. The pain in his groin was  _ terrible _ , but he couldn't allow the imposter get way—there was too much at stake.

"You think you can escape me, imposter?!" he hollered as he ran out of the house, sharply stopping a few yards before the house to look in which direction had the blue hedgehog ran; and a moment later the red eyes finally locked onto the horizon, the imposter now a barely visible dot in the distance.

But such a small distance was nothing for a super-sonic hedgehog.

Shadow charged forward, his skates burning everything under his feet to a crisp as he chased after the imposter, gradually forcing his legs to move faster to gain more speed, his aching lower parts making it a harder task than usually.

Nevertheless, the sound of sonic boom could soon be heard across the plains.

~O~

Fiona smirked as she continued to run further and further from Tails' house, not worried about being followed. After all, the only person that could keep up with her was surely still wailing in pain at Tails' house.

Her next plan was simple; she would reach the nearest city, find some nice place to hide and there she would contact Dr. Nega to warn him about the new hitch in their plan and ask what she should do now when their plan was busted—and probably get her wrist treated somewhere in between.

—Or at least that' was what she would have done if she wasn't suddenly knocked to the ground by the left hook of one rather pissed off dark hedgehog that had suddenly appeared by her side.

She screamed in alarm as she fell to the ground face first, her vision blackening for a moment; the velocity of her previous movement and Shadow's punch forcing her to make a few unwanted rolls before she was abruptly stopped by crashing into a tree with a cry of pain and the sound of breaking bones.

Hissing, Fiona tried to see through the waterfall of pain that was now clouding her vision. Her right arm was completely limp, hurting like if it was broken to pieces—which it likely was—just like few of her ribs had to be as she had trouble breathing and the familiar metallic taste of blood was on her tongue.

But even if neither of these injuries were present,s he would not be able to run away; her vision was swimming too much for her to know which way was up and down, and she honestly felt that she had two minutes at maximum before she would pass out.

—which would probably be for the better, judging by the terrifying look that Shadow was currently giving her; at least she wouldn't feel any pain once the dark hedgehog decided to kill her; because there was just _no way_ for her to escape Shadow's wrath in this condition.

However, a familiar voice that suddenly sounded in her ear made her reconsider that maybe the situation wasn't as hopeless as she had thought it to be.  _ "What's happening, Fiona?! Your life-functions readings are alarming!" _

"H-help me..." she uttered in a quiet voice, hoping she would be heard by her ally.

"Help you? Why would I do such thing?" Shadow asked as he raised an eye-ridge in question, not realizing that those words weren't meant for him, his expression twisting into a sadistic smirk just a moment later. "But I might shorten your suffering if you give me the answers I want..."

Fiona would have probably responded with something along the lines of 'Screw you!' if she wasn't focusing on trying to not suffocate from all the blood that was getting into her upper airways. "...Ne-gah-never..."

"You should reconsider that..." Shadow said as he slowly started to approach her, golden chaos energy starting to slowly accumulate in the palm of his left hand; and Fiona felt a shiver ran down her spine as watched the dark hedgehog advance toward her in a predator like manner that made her instincts scream at her to run for her life.

The dark hedgehog now stood before her, raising his left hand which was now shining with a bright golden light of chaos energy. "Because I have my ways of making people talk..." The golden energy in Shadow's left hand suddenly began to change its color to crimson, an evil smirk, which made the blood in the criminal's veins turn to ice, appearing on the dark agent's face.

"So let's get down to the business, shall we?" Shadow asked, the terrifying smirk never leaving his face as he reached for her with his energy-coated hand, the crackling power feeling as menacing as the expression the agent wore.

But before Shadow could even touch the other, the two of them were enveloped in a bright light that seemed to come out of nowhere and when it disappeared neither of the two was there anymore. The only evidence of them ever being there being the broken tree branch at which Fiona had broken her arm just minutes ago.

~O~

Tails' unfocused gaze moved slowly from the door leading to his workshop to stare at the small dent in the wall where the dark agent had been strangling the blue hedgehog just ten minutes ago, the short 'fight' that followed right after playing before his eyes.

Sonic had fought dirty. Sonic _never_ fought dirty—and then...then Sonic had said _that_.

_ "Ha! That's what you deserve,  _ ** _**bastard** _ ** _!" _

That exclamation... He had never heard his best-friend call anyone 'bastard' before; it was nothing like Sonic. His brother would _never_ say something like that.

Blue eyes slowly trailed back the bat in his hold, the wood now feeling like a burning coal in his hand, the horrible sound of its impact with Shadow's skull still ringing in his ears.

At that moment, attacking Shadow had made sense to his clouded mind—the agent had been strangling his defenseless brother. Him stepping in had been necessary. However, at the same time, Shadow had never once attacked Sonic without a good reason...

_ "You think you can escape me, imposter?!" _

_...imposter...? _

Blue eyes widened in realization at the memory, the bat slipping from the small gloved hand as Tails raised it to his mouth in shock.

He had made a  ** _horrible_ ** mistake.

~O~

Knuckles was minding his own business like usual; he just laid on the staircase of the altar with the Master Emerald, guarding the giant gem from possible theft—while also expecting a visit from certain blue hero who had finally been found from what he had heard. Knowing Sonic, it would probably take just a few days for the blue hero to drop by to say 'hello'...and then try to annoy the hell out of him.

"Guardian!"

But this definitely wasn't Sonic's voice.

The echidna slowly opened his eyes and was met with a sight of none other than Shadow the Hedgehog standing at the bottom of the staircase, looking more ticked off than usually.

"Hey, there, Shadow. What brings you here?" Knuckles asked as he stood up, stretching himself a little after such long time of not moving at all.

"Accident. But that is not important. Tell me—Have you seen anyone except me around here in last few hours?" Shadow asked, gesturing vaguely with his hand to the whole flying island.

The guardian shook his head. "You're the first person I have seen in the last two days."

"Dammit," Shadow muttered as he gazed around, a growl sounding from deep inside his chest. "So, she's not here..."

"Who?" the guardian asked, raising a questioning brow.

"An imposter of Sonic," the other answered, a scowl forming on his face. "I believe you have already heard Sonic is back. However, as it showed, it wasn't Sonic at all."

"What?! How—? Wait! Is Tails okay?!" Knuckles asked, worry clear in his voice; Tails had been left all alone with the imposter for two days! What if—

"He's unharmed. Though it seems he's not aware that the imposter is not Sonic," the dark hedgehog explained, a faint throbbing in his skull reminding him of the young fox's attempt on helping his 'brother'.

"Huh? How it comes Tails doesn't know it's an imposter while you do? Shouldn't he as Sonic's best-friend notice first something was off about Sonic?" Knuckles, asked, giving the other a suspicious look now.

Shadow shrugged his shoulders, giving the only explanation that he could think off, "The fox kid has most likely just been so happy with the Faker being back that he had dismissed all of the imposter's strange behavior as non-important."

Knuckles had to admit that this theory made sense. "What exactly was this strange behavior?"

"Calling Doctor by his proper title, being brief about where he was all this time, declining a chance to race due to feeling tired, and then there were small things in his body-language that gave away his act," Shadow explained; the body language had been the one that had played the biggest role in him figuring out it had been all just a charade.

Shadow had to give to the imposter that he was excellent at copying the blue hero's usual gestures; however, he had messed up at the most basic thing.

The way Sonic walked.

Sonic's strides were always full of energy, barely making any sound when his feet connected to the ground—which was likely an unconsciously picked up habit due to constantly sneaking around Doctor's robots. While the imposter's stride were heavy, lacking energy and most of importantly...the imposter was visibly swaying his hips.

Which had left Shadow completely bewildered at first as Sonic had never swayed his hips like _that_ when walking. It was the type of walk you would expect from someone like Rouge who was constantly trying to catch the attention of every male around.

"Well, yeah, all these things are strange when it comes to Sonic. But how can you be so sure it's really an imposter?" Knuckles asked, crossing his arms over his red chest. Hehad to admit that Sonic calling Eggman by his proper title was extremely rare; he usually reserved using Doctor's proper title only for situations when he was telling about Dr. Eggman to someone who didn't know who Eggman was at all. The second thing was even stranger; Sonic loved telling tales about where he was and what he had seen. Also declining a race or any kind of challenge was really rare for the blue hero as he usually accepted even challenges which he knew he would lose, just for the thrill of it. Sonic declined challenges only when he was _completely_ worn out which would explain the other two as well.

"I have seen the imposter out of her disguise," the dark hedgehog answered, earning himself a surprised look from the other.

" _ Her _ ?"

"A young red-furred fox girl. She deactivated her disguise when she thought no one was looking," Shadow clarified, slightly hoping Knuckles might know who the girl was; it would make the search for the girl easier.

"A fox girl?" Knuckles scratched his head, searching his memory for any fox girls that he might know. But there were none. "Do you know who she is?"

Shadow shook his head. "No. Even GUN doesn't have any file on someone matching her description."

"Why would a random girl pretend to be Sonic?" the guardian asked, not understanding the situation at all.

"I've kept an eye on her for a while and it seems she is after the Chaos Emeralds," Shadow responded, crossing his arms over his chest. "However, I don't know what she wants them for."

"She could be working for Eggman," Knuckles suggested, the mere thought bringing a frown to his face.

"...It's likely," Shadow agreed as this possibility would make biggest sense; Dr. Eggman was always trying to get his hands on the Chaos Emeralds. Moreover, the girl's masking device was obviously very advanced; after all, her disguise was unrecognizable from the actual Sonic. Not even GUN had this kind of technology. But someone of Dr. Eggman's experience and genius could easily create a such device...

"Does she know you are aware of her secret or do we still have the moment of surprise?" Knuckles asked, already itching for some action—things had been way too quiet lately.

"Unfortunately, yes. I have confronted her but by some unknown means I have been teleported here before I could get any information out of her," Shadow answered, clearly irritated by this fact.

"I guess that explains that spike of energy I felt on the west side of island," Knuckles said, looking in the direction from which he had felt the energy spike coming.

Shadow frowned as the guardian was looking in the exact opposite direction from where he had come.

"I was teleported to the east side."

~O~

Fiona was clutching her side with her uninjured hand while the other was just limply hanging by her side, her whole body posture wordlessly conveying in what kind of horrible pain she was.

She hissed as she let go of her side to push a stone wall that was before her, for a moment hiding with her hand a very a familiar looking symbol that had been carved into the wall.

"Well, I surely don't need more proof that she works with Eggman..." Knuckles declared quietly, watching the imposter from his spot behind a bush.

Shadow frowned at the other's statement, eyeing the symbol. It looked very similar to Doctor's but there was a tiny difference. There were pointy glasses instead of the usual blank spots for eyes. Though that could be just a new design. However, he had this unexplainable feeling in his gut that something wasn't quite right here...

Then the stone wall opened and the imposter walked inside the secret base, the entrance immediately closing after her.

Knuckles turned to the other, his voice at his ordinary speaking volume as they didn't have to worry about being heard anymore. "What now? Do you have a plan?"

"My plan is to go after her and make her tell me  _ everything _ ** , ** " Shadow responded, stepping out of their hiding place as it wasn't necessary for them to hide any longer. "But if you have any other ideas..."

"No. I like that plan. Nice and simple," Knuckles said as he stepped out too, cracking his namesakes. "Count me in."


	25. This Should NOT Be Happening

Back in the Other World, Sonic huffed in annoyance as he jumped down from a crown of the tree; he had climbed up there to take a look around, hoping that he'd be able to spot Shadow—who had ran off earlier this morning and the blue hero hadn't seen him since.

The moment Sonic's feet connected with the ground, the hero broke into a run, his eyes observing the terrain around him as he looked for any signs of the dark hedgehog's presence. Unfortunately, there were none to be found.

Blue feet merged into a blur as Sonic quickened his pace, trying to get through the forest terrain as fast as he could without taking the risk of running straight into a tree. He continued to observe his surroundings intently, hoping to see at least a glimpse of black and red colors or to feel a faint trace of chaos energy that would suggest Shadow was nearby; his own ability to sense chaos energy wasn't as good as Shadow's but it was still good enough for him to sense other chaos users as long as they were in thirty yards range from him.

Suddenly, the familiar feeling of chaos energy washed over him, a flash of dark blue color appearing in his peripheral vision.

Noticing this, Sonic sharply turned around, going headlong in the direction from which he could sense the chaos energy coming. And for a brief moment, there was the same the flash of blue again—but it disappeared behind a tree before he could take a better look at what it was.

The blue hedgehog quickened his pace a little bit more to catch up with the unfamiliar object. What could it be? It was of a dark blue color and produced a chaos energy signal—

_ The Chaos Emerald that Shadow gave me!  _ he realized with a surprised gasp.  _ I have to get it! He  _ sped up even more, the dodging of various rocks, roots, trees and other things that were in his way now becoming quite a challenging task.

Another flash of color, now directly on his left.

The blue hero sharply turned and lunged forward, hoping he would be able to surprise whatever was carrying the Emerald—which lead to him accidentally knocking over the carrier, the poor creature—which seemed to be one of Eggman's old badniks—toppling on its side, the Chaos Emerald falling out of its scythe-like hands.

Forcing the soles of his shoes against the ground, Sonic stopped abruptly, his feet creating long, deep marks in the soft ground of the tropical forest with the sudden standstill.

Curious, the blue hedgehog approached to the toppled-over badnik, recognizing it as a Motobug, its lady-bug design with the blue head and scythes for arms giving away its identity immediately.

With a grin, Sonic picked up the dropped Chaos Emerald. Having the gem back in his hold dispersed all the worries that he had acquired when it had disappeared.

The blue hero gazed at the lying robot, which was now hissing at him, making warning gestures with its scythes at him to not touch the gem as it tried to get back to its feet, er, wheel...

Sonic placed the gem into his head quills and then cracked his knuckles, grinning. It seemed it was the time to trash a badnik!

However, just then the badnik rolled back to its wheel again and then without any further warning...

It charged.

~O~

"You'll pay for this!" Fang screamed from his cell, hands tightly curled around the metal bars before him, while his team-mates lay unconscious on the floor behind him. "Just wait until I get out of here!"

"You really thing you would be able to do anything in your state?" Scourge asked with a wide smirk as he looked over the weasel's battered form. "Well, I guess everybody can dream. But before we get to that—mind telling me how did you get to the information about us having the Master Emerald in the first place?"

Fang sneered. "As if I would tell you anything."

The green criminal shrugged his shoulders. "I'm just giving you a chance to choose the least painful way."

Suddenly, Fang found himself roughly pressed against the bars, Scourge's hand curled around his throat. With a smug smile, the green criminal gazed at him, obviously enjoying that he was now struggling with his breath. "But I have to admit that I enjoy the painful ways more...So, what do you you say?"

Fang continued to thrash violently in the other's hold, repeatedly hitting Scourge's arm but without any success; after the battle he had almost no power left in his body so his hits felt like nothing more than weak smacks to Scourge. Only once the weasel started to turn blue, Scourge finally decided it was the time to let go as he did not want to lose his source of information.

Fang fell to his knees, wheezing as he struggled to get air into his burning lungs. Scourge crouched down to be on the same eye level with the weasel, a wicked smile on his face. "So—will it be the easy way or the hard way?"

Fang hissed, already opening his mouth to retort—

"Scourge!" Dawg burst into the room, his chest rising and falling rapidly as if he had been running just seconds before.

"What is it?!" the green criminal snapped back at the dog as he stood up back to his original height. Didn't Sleuth see he had matters to take care of?!

The canine Mobian ignored the harsh tone of his fellow criminal and instead proceeded with informing the other of the reason for his interruption, "Some robots are trying to steal the Master Emerald and we are unable to stop them!"

"What?!" Scourge roared rather in anger than a surprise—for fuck's sake, he had just stopped one attempt of theft of the freaking gem! "Where?!"

"The left wing—!"

The green hedgehog zipped off towards his destination before Sleuth could even finish his sentence. In just a few seconds he was met with sight of four giants robots trying to escape with the Master Emerald via a mysterious purple portal that had appeared on the other side of the room—where the other members of Destructix were trying to keep the robots from proceeding any further but without much success.

"Enough!" Scourge shouted as he attacked the nearest robot, successfully sending it to the ground; and then when he saw it was attempting to get up again, he send it crashing to the ground again, this time with a good old spin-dash.

However, even after the second attack, there were absolutely no marks on the robot's armor that would suggest it was just assaulted by the hedgehog's deadly spikes.

Scourge scowled. So this was the reason why the others were unable to take these machines down...

And so he launched himself at the robots again and again, using all kinds of attacks that come to his mind but with no results; the robots were still slowly proceeding, the Master Emerald high above their metal heads, far away from the reach of any of the Destructix's members.

Scourge growled in fury. This was just fucking pathetic! The frigging robots weren't even fighting back! They _completely_ ignored them! Anytime they fell to the ground, they would just get up again, ignoring whoever that had knocked them down!

It was clear that these robots were solely focused on getting the Master Emerald to the portal for some reason.

And they were _almost_ there already.

_Shit!_ Scourge hissed internally as he circled around the robots trying to spot any kind of weak-point that he could use to finally destroy this robotic pain in his ass.

But there were none.

"Boss! They're—!"

_At the portal,_ the green criminal realized with horror; but it was too late. Two of the robots were already stepping through, the Master Emerald already halfway through the portal.

"No fucking way!" Scourge shouted, enraged, as he lunged forward in last attempt to stop the robots, which—due to them side-stepping—send him flying straight through the portal.

At the very moment his feet touched the ground on the other side of the portal, the green hedgehog fell to his knees, his entire body suddenly feeling as if all of its power had been drained from it.  _ What the f _ _ — _ _?! _

"An energy-draining portal. Very useful against unexpected guests of your kind," a too-familiar sounding voice explained before he could even ask, making Scourge raise his gaze from the ground.

And Scourge felt his throat go dry. "What?! You!? But you can't be alive—!"

~O~

Shadow frowned as he examined the remains of the robots that he and Sonic had fought the day before and that had taken them so long to destroy, the ex-agent trying to figure out what was the secret behind their durability.

However, the once-robots' armor didn't seem or feel special anyhow—it was the usual steel that the doctor always used for his robots.

He moved the pile of scraps around a bit, hoping to maybe find some piece that would answer his questions. Maybe some device that provided additional protection...

His eye-ridges shot up in surprise at what he found.

Under the remains there were two small gem-stones, both glowing with soft greenish light and radiating great power despite their miniature size; it felt similar to the power of Chaos Emeralds, but at the same time there felt something deeply _wrong_ about these gems.

Frowning, Shadow cautiously picked up one of the jewels to take a closer look. It was cut into the same shape like a Chaos Emerald but only about half its size. The material seemed to be a beryl as well and now when he was holding the gem he could feel its energy flow more clearly. The gem didn't only emit energy, it also sucked the energy out of the air from time to time.

Was that why these gems felt so wrong to him?

The dark hedgehog turned the gem in his hand curiously. The resemblance to a Chaos Emerald was unnerving. Could this be some new attempt of Doctor's on creating a Chaos Emerald?

However, Shadow couldn't continue in his musings about the strange jewel—as just then he had to dodge a certain blue hedgehog, (riding on a badnik that he surely didn't have the driving license for,) which had just appeared out of the forest with a loud yell of "Watch out!'".

Raising an eye-ridge at the show, the ebony ex-agent gazed at the strange duo where the badnik seemed to be trying to get Sonic off it while the blue hero just laughed and grinned at its attempts.

Somehow Shadow was not concerned with the situation at all—but that was a normal thing after knowing Sonic for so long; the blue hero had a tendency to do ridiculous and crazy things quite often.

Sighing, the ebony hedgehog hid the strange gem into his head-quills for later examination, deciding that the situation at hand might require his attention if the blue hero did something stupid; it surely wouldn't be the first time.

"Having a great time?" Shadow shouted loud—enough so the other could hear him even though he was on the other side of the clearing at the moment.

"The best!" Sonic shouted back, the badnik choosing that exact moment to do few spins that it clearly hoped would finally get the blue hedgehog off its back but instead earned it another laughing fit from the hero.

Shadow could feel a rare smile tug at his lips at seeing Sonic being so genuinely happy, the moment making him almost forget the current predicament they were in.

Almost.

The ex-agent frowned. They couldn't return to his house as it was surely already swarmed with GUN soldiers searching for any clue where they could be—it was just a question of time until they would come to question Knuckles too. With him being Rouge's husband, it would make sense that she and her allies would try to find shelter at his place.

Shadow's ears perked up as the sound of the Motobug approaching reached his ears, making him snap out of his little world of worries. The badnik seemed to be exhausted while the blue hero, who was still perched atop of it, seemed to be beaming with energy.

"Are you finished?" Shadow asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yup." Sonic grinned as he jumped down from the badnik, which seemed too exhausted to even notice the blue hero had finally decided to leave it alone.

Shadow opened his mouth to say something more, but the blue hero just raised his hand in gesture for him to stop, the dark hedgehog immediately closing his mouth again, wondering what Sonic had in plan.

Then Sonic reached into his quills and then showed him the blue Chaos Emerald, a big grin on his face. "Look what I've found!"

The dark hedgehog raised an eye-ridge in question. "I believe that you said that you had lost it."

"Well, as it seems I didn't. This guy had it with him when I ran into him," Sonic explained, patting the badnik that currently seemed to be dozing off.

Shadow looked at the badnik, scowling. "What is a badnik even doing here? I believed the Angel Island was without any badniks for years already."

"Yeah, I thought so too. Maybe it has stayed here for all these years hidden somewhere," the blue hero suggested, which earned him a shake of head from the other.

"Just look at it. It's armor is polished and there are no signs of corrosion. It's clearly new."

Sonic had to admit that he had no real argument to that. "Yeah, I guess. But what is it doing here then?"

"It's probably somehow connected to these robots." Shadow gestured with hand to the remains of the killer machines. "However, I am not sure how."

"You know...So many of Egghead's robots on one place are usually just around his bases..." Sonic remarked,

Two pairs of eyes widened a moment later, the two looking at each other as they came to the same conclusion.

Dr. Eggman still had a functional base on the Angel Island.

~O~

Rouge sighed as she folded the last of the blankets she, Knuckles and Amy had used the night before to keep themselves warm. However, even such a mundane task didn't help her forget about the worry in the pit of her stomach was growing with each passing hour—both for Shadow and Sonic—as she hadn't seen either of the two hedgehogs since yesterday. The bat was well aware that the two were capable of taking care of themselves but she still couldn't brush away the uncomfortable feeling that something bad might have happened to them.

Plus they also needed to discuss their future plan; they couldn't stay on the Angel Island for much longer. It was only question of time until the GUN would came to search for them here. Thankfully, the Angel Island's unstable location provided them with a little bit more of time—as the GUN firstly needed to find where on Mobius currently was the at-this-moment-not-so-flying island.

However, if Amy succeeded in her mission of persuading the Chaotix to tell her the position of the newest Destructix's hideout—which would give them the opportunity to finally catch the imposter and prove to the Commander that there were two Sonics running around—before that happened, then searching for another place to hide wouldn't be even necessary.

As she put away the blankets, Rouge felt her mind wander back to the pink heroine. She and Knuckles had been able to convince Amy to leave for her mission—which took a _lot_ of persuasion as the pink heroine didn't want to leave without saying good-bye to Sonic—but hadn't heard from the girl since.

Sighing, Rouge headed for the door; but before she could even make the first step outside, there was a small feeling of vibration against her calf, the female frowning when she realized what was the only possible cause.

_ The only one that has a number to this cell-phone is Tails... _

She reached into her boot and took out the small cell-phone, looking at the device in her hand with an unpleasant feeling slowly forming in her gut. She had told Tails to call her on this number only if something serious was happening—which meant that whatever she was about to hear surely wouldn't be good news.

Mentally bracing herself, Rouge accepted the call, the unpleasant feeling in her gut worsening as she placed the cell-phone to her ear. "Hello?"

And she almost dropped it when she was answered by too familiar voice that definitely did _not_ belong to Tails.

_ "Hello, agent Rouge." _

As the voice was none other's than the Commander's.

~O~

"How on Mobius didn't we notice this thing earlier?" Sonic asked, gesturing to the giant steel gate that definitely lead to Eggman's base—despite it lacking the scientist's trademark symbol.

"That's a great question," Shadow replied, already looking for any kind of buttons or levers that could open the gate.

Humming, Sonic turned to the Motobug that had refused to leave his side until it was returned the blue Chaos Emerald. "Hey, buddy! Don't you happen to know how to get inside?"

But the only response Sonic got from the badnik was a menacing hiss and the bot doing a couple of gestures with its scythes.

"...I'll take that as a 'no'," Sonic said after a moment of unsuccessfully trying to figure out the badnik's angrily sounding message, the hero turning around to look at Shadow once again. "Any luck so far?"

"Maybe," Shadow responded as he noticed a panel on the gate that had slightly different texture than the rest of the giant gate. He curled his fingers around it tightly and after applying it a bit more force successfully pried it off the wall.

A big red button that had been hidden underneath come into the view. From the corner of his eyes, Shadow could see how big Sonic's eyes got at the sight of the button and how the hero began to slowly reach for it.

But the dark hedgehog gripped his companion's wrist before he could click the button. "Do you remember what happened the last time you clicked a random button?"

"Uh? ...Oh," Sonic said, his cheeks turning slightly pink at the memory of what had happened. "Of course."

Shadow let go of the other's wrist and Sonic made a small step back, looking away from him to avoid his gaze, the memory still embarrassing to him clearly.

Rolling his eyes at the other's behavior, the dark ex-agent turned back to the button before them, mulling over their options.

They could click the button, which could have two outcomes: A) the gate would open, B) the gate would stay closed and some kind of trap would be set off. However, they could also not click the button and instead try to get inside differently—but so far they hadn't seen any other entrance and forcing their way through this _gate_ surely would set off some kind security measures that the Doctor had installed when building the base.

"So, um, what are we going to do now? It seems this is the only way—" Sonic asked as he turned around, stopping mid-sentence as he noticed the Motobug that surely hadn't been standing right next to Shadow with its scythe-like hand dangerously close to the button just a moment ago.

Shadow noticed the other's abrupt silence and he turned to look at which the other was staring so intently; but before he could anything to stop the badnik, it was too late already.

Click.

"Well, I guess it's decided," Sonic stated with a sheepish smile—just as the ground under their feet disappeared and both hedgehogs began to fall.


	26. Maddening Maze

"Well, this is new," Sonic said as he was met with pitch-blackness—he literally couldn't see a thing. "Shads, where are you?"

"Right next you," sounded from his right, Sonic immediately turning towards the direction of the voice.

Even though Sonic was aware of the other's presence, the hero still almost jumped out of his skin when a hand unexpectedly touched his shoulder. "Gah! Shadow! Don't startle me like that!"

"My apologies," was Shadow's quick reply just a moment later.

"Apology accepted..." Sonic said, shifting to the other. "Erm, you don't happen to have a flash-light by chance, do you?" Sonic asked, kind of hoping the other would actually have some kind of light-source on him; he wasn't exactly afraid of dark but he wasn't really fond of it either.

"Possibly..." Shadow murmured quietly, his voice trailing off into silence at the end and thus leaving the other to wonder what he was talking about.

Suddenly, there was a small flicker of light and in mere seconds an orb of golden chaos energy was floating above Shadow's palm, its bright light faintly illuminating the dark corridor that they were in.

"Whoa, Shads! You surprise me everyday!" Sonic announced, staring in awe at the bright orb of golden energy in the other's palm. "How many more tricks you have up your sleeve?"

"A quite few," Shadow replied, adding energy to the orb to brighten up the place more, the golden light now enough for them to see deep into the corridor.

"Another thing that you'll be teaching me later!" Sonic grinned widely, giving a soft bump to the other's shoulders before locking his gaze on the corridor before them and rushing forward. "But let's not waste any more time! Let's go!"

~O~

"This is ridiculous!" Knuckles growled, smashing his fist against the door that he had just opened—only to find the room behind filled with dozens of doors. "How are we supposed to find anyone in here?!"

"We aren't. That's the point," Shadow responded, walking into the room and then proceeding with opening every single door in the room, hoping he would find something else than another door-filled room behind it—but it seemed that he was out of luck today. "All these doors are here just to confuse anyone who isn't supposed to be here. In this case—us."

The echidna growled, annoyed. "I surely preferred when there were only robots in my way! This is just so...er..."

"Aggravating?" the dark agent suggested, walking through the random door on his left.

"...Yeah, that," Knuckles nodded, following the dark hedgehog into the room—which was completely filled with doors, unsurprisingly.

Shadow sighed as he went to open all the doors again. "It will surely take some time until we get out of here."

"Ugh, I should have kept to guarding the Master," the red male said, joining the other in his task. "That bat thief is surely gonna try to steal it the moment she finds out I'm not there."

Shadow made a disagreeing noise at the back of his throat, drawing the guardian's attention with the action. "I believe that would be more convenient than the doctor possibly getting his hands on the Master Emerald."

"...I guess that would be better," Knuckles mumbled after a brief moment, having to agree with the other's opinion; Rouge was definitely a better alternative to the doctor. "I really haven't expected that this would take so long. I'll call someone to fill in for me."

Then to Shadow's surprise the echidna took a cell-phone out of his left shoe and proceeded with dialing the Chaotix's office number.

But nobody picked it up.

Knuckles frowned—the Chaotix had to be busy with something if no one was picking up the phone. He ended the call and began to scroll through his contacts again to search for Tails' number.

One. Two. Three rings— _"Oh, thank Chaos, Knuckles! You have no idea how long I've been trying to call you!"_

"Really?" the guardian asked, frowning at the cell-phone in his hand; he had no missed calls. "Never mind. Listen to me, I need someone to look after the Master for some time—"

_ "What?! No, Knuckles, you can't leave the Master Emerald! You see—I just found out that Sonic isn't back! It's just someone pretending to be him and our Chaos Emeralds are missing now! The imposter will surely come after the Master Emerald next _ _ — _ _!" _

"I know about the imposter and I'm currently going after her with Shadow—and that's why I need you to look after the Master Emerald now," Knuckles interrupted the young inventor before he could say anything more. "—Take Amy with you. I am sure the two of you can take care of it until we return."

_ "Wait, Knuck-"  _ Tails began, his words getting cut off as the loud beeping of lost signal echoed through the room.

Confused, Knuckles only stared at the device in his hand for a moment, perplexed at why had been ended so abruptly. Then he looked to his companion who was still patiently waiting by one of the doors.

"Well, I guess that's a sign that we should get going..."

~O~

The place was a maze. About thousands turns later, Sonic was starting to have a feeling the place didn't even have an exit.

Well, if they had separated at the very first cross-road they had encountered, one of them could have found the exit by now. However, Sonic refused to leave Shadow's side as he had the only source of light in this entire place; the hero was sure he would crash into the first wall if he were to go alone in the dark.

And just then, without any warning, the orb in Shadow's hand disappeared, darkness claiming the space around them once more. Confused at the sudden lack of light, Sonic turned to the other hedgehog—or at least where he believed him to be—seeing small sparks as the dark hedgehog attempted to create a new orb.

But even after three more attempts, nothing but a few sparks appeared, Shadow huffing in annoyance at this new finding. "Something here is blocking my powers..."

"What are we going to do now?" Sonic asked, slightly anxious as he really did not like being in the dark; without his sight he felt vulnerable against attack. He knew he might be just paranoid but, hey, they were in Eggman's base which meant at least thousands of robots were running around freely...

"Continue, of course," Shadow answered, feeling the other reach for his hand and then grip—most likely to ensure they wouldn't get separated in the dark.

And Sonic's own instinctively tightened its grip on his rival's hand, not really considering the gesture strange; he knew it was only so neither of them got lost in this strange place and it definitely helped him to feel way more safe too...

"Well, I don't know what about you but I can't see a thing. How are we going to orientate in this place in the dark?" Sonic asked, gesturing with his hand even though the other couldn't see it.

"Echo-location."

"...You can do that?" Sonic blinked, surprised; he wasn't aware Shadow's hearing was sensitive enough to manage this task.

"To a degree," Shadow responded, softly tugging the other forward. "So, don't distract me or else we might crash into something." Then the agent began to walk, his steps now louder than they were before in order to have the needed echo and Sonic for once decided to go along with the Shadow's commands, silently following the other hedgehog's lead.

However, it took only about ten minutes for Sonic's mind to stop caring about the fact that he couldn't see a thing and instead started to focus on different things. For example, how perfectly his and Shadow's hand fitted together...

The blue hero shook his head, trying to get that thought of his head. What was with all these strange thoughts lately? Why was he having those thoughts about Shadow?

...had something changed in how he felt about Shadow?

Well, he definitely enjoyed his company...probably even more than before... And now there was this warm feeling in his chest anytime he made Shadow smile...and holding hands like this felt somehow... _ right _ .

But...he couldn't possibly be... _ in  _ _ love _ ...with Shadow...

...Right?

"Shadow?" Sonic said, his voice as low as possible; it was a horrible idea to ask this Shadow out of  _ all _ _ people _ ** ,  ** but he just  _ had to  _ know. The other gave him acknowledging grunt to show he was listening and Sonic took a deep breath to muster the power to ask the dreaded question. "How...how do you know you are in love with someone?"

The dark hedgehog froze in his tracks, Sonic immediately stopping as well so he wouldn't bump into his rival. Sonic could hear Shadow take a deep, slightly shuddering breath—most likely to recompose himself.

"Why are you asking me that now?" Shadow asked, his tone calm and even—which, however, instead of easing Sonic made the hero have this inexplicable urge to withdraw his hand from Shadow's grip and start running.

"Well, you are definitely more, um, _knowledgeable_ in this field than me. So I thought you could explain it to me..."

Even in the dark Sonic could feel how Shadow's intent stare bore into him, the agent not saying anything for a long time—until, "Well, it's..."

The blue hero blinked in surprise at hearing Shadow speak up. He actually expected his rival would refuse to answer this question. "...Being in love is, well, the best and at the same time the worst feeling in the world..."

Sonic kept quiet, listening closely to Shadow's words. "You want to be with that person all the time and even when they are away, they are always on your mind... You wish to make that person happy even if it means sacrificing yourself for them because just a simple smile from the person can change the worst day into an amazing one... and you have a feeling that the life without them is meaningless..."

The blue hero could feel how the other squeezed his hand softly. If it was an intentional or an unconscious action from the dark hedgehog, he was not sure; but he understood the meaning of that gesture. It made him feel all happy and warm inside—and at the same time it made his heart feel as if it was being painfully squeezed inside his chest.

Shadow gave a tired sigh. "...Was that answer enough for you?"

"Yes, thank you," Sonic answered, the gratitude in his voice genuine.

"Alright, then—Any more questions? Or can we continue?" Shadow asked, obviously impatient to resume back to the task at hand—and most likely to escape the unpleasant situation that he had been put into. Sonic fully understood that. Therefore, he gave the other a smile and nod of agreement, however, when he realized the other couldn't see him, he spoke up.

"Yeah, sure! Let's go!"

~O~

"And where the heck does this lead to?!" Knuckles growled, opening another metal door only to find another insanely long corridor; they had gotten out of the door-filled-rooms insanity about ten minutes ago but since then he had been plagued by this 'corridor' thing!

"I'm more concerned about how could all of this fit in the Angel Island's underground," Shadow said, looking over the completely white corridor. "Because based on how far we have walked already there's no way we are still on the island."

"And where would we be? It's not like we could leave a **_flying_** island without noticing," the echidna responded, the exasperation he felt clearly visible in his tone.

Red eyes moved to look at the end of the corridor where another metal door, looking completely identical to the one they had just passed through, could be seen. "Well, that's the question..."

~O~

Alright, he was sure now—this maze had no exit.

Seriously, if they didn't find exit in the next five minutes he would just curl into a ball and wreck this place; he honestly didn't care about being stealthy anymore.

And he let his frustration known to the world—by letting out a growl of annoyance, drawing his companion's attention to himself with the action.

"What is it?" Shadow asked, his tone suggesting that the ex-agent might be slowly being driven insane by the maze just like him. But it did nothing to ease Sonic's own frustration and thus the hero let go of Shadow's hand in order to ruffle his head-quills angrily.

"This place is driving me nuts! Why cannot we find an exit finally?!" The blue hero stomped heavily to express his anger and emphasize his point—which earned him exactly what he had wanted; the ground under him gave out unexpectedly and he started to fall down into the unknown, a surprised shout leaving him as he suddenly found himself airborne with legs having nothing to grip on.

"Sonic!" Shadow immediately lunged forward, trying to reach for the blue hero; but the light from the newly made entrance blinded his dark-accustomed eyes, the crimson orbs instinctively closing on their own to protect themselves from the harsh light.

And thus his hand missed Sonic's hand by a single inch...

The dark ex-agent forced his eyes open again, his vision blurry as it did not have the time to accustom to the new light; but Shadow still managed to make out how the trap-door closed itself, leaving him in absolute darkness once again.

_No! Not again!_ He leapt on the trap door, trying to make it open the same way like Sonic.

However, it stayed close.

An enraged growl sounded in Shadow's chest at this, the ex-agent desperately searching his mind for ideas—he wouldn't lose Sonic again! He  _ refused  _ to lose Sonic again!

Shadow clutched his head, the horrible feeling of dread racing through his being at the very thought of the blue hero getting hurt anyhow.

_ Think! Think!  _ ** _THINK!_ **

~O~

The blue hero groaned as he slowly got up on all four, his back aching and protesting loudly as he moved into this new position. "Gah, what a high fall..."

Sonic opened his eyes but closed them immediately again as he was met with sharp light, his vision not accustomed to such a brightly-lit room. After a couple of seconds, he dared to slowly open his eyes again, squinting a bit as they were still adjusting. It seemed that he was in some empty long white corridor with only one door leading from the place...

Sonic looked up to see from where he had fallen down. There was a big metal trap door but it had closed again after he had fallen through. How on Mobius he had fallen from up there and hadn't broken anything was beyond him...

But there was certainly _no_ way he would be able to get back there so the only choice out of here was— "Well, let's see where does this mysterious door lead, shall we?"

He walked over to the door and turned the door handle, pleased to find the door was unlocked. He swung the door open and was surprised to find who was on the other side.

"Shadow? How did you get here?"

But instead of an answer, he only got a gun pointed at his face.

Sonic raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, not understanding what had suddenly gotten into his rival. "S-Shads? Is something wrong?"

~O~

"What was that?" Knuckles asked, looking towards the door of the room from where the noise had sounded, not making a move while the hedgehog beside him took out the gun that he always kept in his head-quills.

"Most likely Doctor's robots finally showing up..." Shadow replied as he approached the door cautiously, Knuckles right behind him and ready to give a helping hand.

Shadow reached for the door handle, but before he could touch it, the door suddenly opened on its own and on the other side was—

A blue hedgehog that looked just like Sonic.

"Shadow? How did you get here?"

_The imposter!_ Shadow immediately raised his gun, pointing it at the hedgehog's head, and making a few steps back to get some space between him and the blue hedgehog for safety reasons—not realizing this was the real Sonic of their world who had no intention to harm him.

The blue hedgehog immediately raised his hands, looking slightly afraid. "S-Shads? Is something wrong?"

"Don't play dumb with us!" Shadow hissed. "We know you are not the real Sonic so stop pretending already!"

"Not the real Sonic?!" The blue hero was confused, not understanding why was Shadow suddenly accusing him of not being the real deal. "I'm Sonic! What on Mobius—?! Knuckles?" The blue hero was now looking at the guardian as he had noticed the red echidna just now. "What are you doing here? I thought you were with Rouge—"

Knuckles frowned, perplexed. "Why would I be with Rouge?"

"What? What is happening here?!" Sonic asked, looking from one to the other.

"Cut it off! Nobody here believes you to be the real Sonic anymore!" Shadow ordered him while Knuckles menacingly bumped his fists together behind him.

"Yeah! Cut the show!"

"What? Come on, Shads, we have been in the maze together just a minute ago! And how did you even get out of there? You surely haven't went through the trap door with me—" The blue hero looked back up at the metal trap door which was still tightly shut.

"A maze? A trap door? What the hell are you babbling about?" Shadow asked, starting to have a strange feeling about the blue hedgehog before him; his body language and a way of speech were _exactly_ like Sonic's—and the imposter definitely wasn't able to imitate the blue hero so perfectly. And the imposter had a broken arm the last time they had seen him which was only about an hour ago...

But before Shadow could give more thought to this train of thought, a loud boom shook the entire building and all three males were suddenly engulfed in a cloud of dust and debris. They all immediately covered their mouths to stop the dust from getting into their lungs but still coughing heavily as it wasn't a very effective method.

With the dust still present, Sonic turned to look over his shoulder, squinting his eyes to look at the source of the explosion; the boom had definitely sounded somewhere from behind his back.

The air cleared after a few seconds and a familiar form of Shadow could be seen kneeling on the floor in a pile of rubble, breathing heavily.

Sonic blinked in confusion as he looked from the kneeling Shadow to the dark hedgehog that was still pointing a gun at his head but who now seemed very puzzled by the appearance of the Second Shadow himself.

The Other Shadow got up with a grunt, a brightly shining green gem held in his left hand. He looked their way, a relieved expression blossoming on his face when he saw Sonic unharmed; however, the relief changed to alarm just a moment later when he saw his look-alike pointing a gun at the blue hero's head.

And suddenly, he was in front of the blue hero—with a gun of his own pointed at his double's head.

Realizing the two dark hedgehogs might start blowing holes into each other if he didn't step in, Sonic cleared his throat to get attention of all people present. "Before we start shooting each other—Anyone having any idea what is going on?"

"Well, apparently, there are more imposters than we thought," the Shadow with Knuckles growled, cautiously watching his double for even the tiniest of movements.

"Apparently," the Other Shadow responded, keeping a close eye on his doppelgänger as well.

"You know guys, I don't think threating each other with guns will get us anywhere..." Sonic stated but, unsurprisingly, neither of the dark hedgehog reacted to his subtle suggestion of lowering their guns.

The blue hero sighed as he looked to Knuckles, who had been just silently watching the whole exchange so far. "What do you say about leaving those two to themselves and having a little chat just the two of us?" Sonic offered, gesturing to a spot couple of yards away from the others.

The guardian furrowed his eye-ridges, probably deeply thinking the possible outcomes of accepting this offer. "Well...I suppose it wouldn't hurt."

"Sonic..." the Other Shadow growled, his tone alone clearly saying he was not happy about the idea.

"Don't worry, Shads," Sonic chuckled, patting his companion on shoulder lightly while walking past him. "It'll be alright."

That statement earned Sonic a disapproving grunt from the Other Shadow, but no other reaction followed and so Sonic assumed his companion was giving him a free hand at trying to solve the situation.

The blue hero grinned as he went little further from the dark duo, Knuckles immediately joining him.

Sonic grinned as he extended his hand towards the red guardian. "Sonic's the name, speed's my game!"

"Knuckles, the guardian of the Master Emerald," the red echidna answered and shook the other's hand formally, neither of the two realizing that they were introducing themselves to a long-time friend.

"So, we are here to find out how on Mobius is this base of Eggman's still in functioning order when Dr. Eggman is supposed to be dead. What about you?" Sonic immediately cut to the explanation, wanting to know the echidna's reasons for being here—possibly even why was he able to meet look-alikes of his friends without some magical entity being involved if the echidna wanted to share it with him.

"Our Chaos Emeralds have been stolen. We are trying to catch the culprit who happens to be a someone that looks just like you," Knuckles explained, throwing an distrustful look at the blue hedgehog before him.

"Whoa, Shads! Did you hear that? I'm evil in their world!" Sonic shouted back at his companion, presuming the duo was from another world.

"Our world?" Knuckles asked in confusion which earned him a shrug from the blue hero.

"Well, do you have any other explanation as to why we both have our own Shadow with us? Because I can assure you that mine is 100% authentic."

Meanwhile, Shadow wondered why a strange expression flashed across his double's face when hearing the word 'mine' from Sonic.

"I guess that would explain it..." Knuckles trailed off, looking back at the dark duo. "What do you think about this theory, Shadow?"

Shadow's lips pressed into a thin line as he took a quick look at Sonic's obviously injury-less arm. "Well, it would be a logical explanation for our situation..."

Sonic grinned widely, pleased that everyone was agreeing with him. "Alright! Can you two put away the guns now, please?"

Both Shadows seemed to be hesitant about lowering their guns. However, it took one look from Sonic to his companion to make the Other Shadow lower his gun, leaving Shadow once more to wonder about the actions of his doppelgänger; he himself wouldn't lower his gun just because of one scolding look from the cobalt hedgehog.

"Just for the record: The culprit is not the real Sonic of our world, he's an imposter that used Sonic's current absence to lure the Chaos Emeralds out of Sonic's friend," Shadow explained, not really sure how similar their worlds were and thus deciding to keep the explanation simple with not using Tails' name.

"Whoa, that's weird! We actually have a problem with a double of me running around too!" Sonic said, scratching his head. "What a strange coincidence..."

"...Maybe, it's the same imposter," the Other Shadow suggested, earning himself an surprised look from the other three. "The similarities of our situations are very strange and moreover we have met in the same base..."

"Hey, that's a great point!" Sonic said, turning serious. "Wait, does that mean that the imposter is working with their world's Eggman then? And how on Mobius can we be in the same base if we are from two different worlds...?"

All of them exchanged a look, hoping anyone of them could have a possible explanation.

But none of them could provide one.


	27. A Shocking Discovery

Growling low in his throat, Scourge jerked his hands that had been forced above his head, hoping the handcuffs holding them there would come open.

They didn't.

He huffed in annoyance and looked around his empty cell. There was nothing he could use to open the handcuffs around his wrists and neither anything to entertain himself—as there was literally _nothing_ ,  _ except _ _ him _ , in the cell.

The green hedgehog sighed in exasperation. This was horrible. He definitely didn't envy Prime Sonic this part of his heroic life as getting captured by Egg-butt definitely wasn't fun in any way ; he himself had never gotten captured back on Moebius as the goody-two-shoes Dr. Kintobor hadn't ever tried to take prisoners.

He jerked his hands again but the chains didn't give in even this time.

The leader of Destructix cursed. It seemed he wasn't getting anywhere soon. None of his henchmen were here with him as none of them wanted to risk following him through the mysterious portal. And even if they wanted to save him now—he pretty much doubted this part—there was no way of them knowing where he had ended up; it was up to him to get himself out of here.

"Just great," Scourge hissed, lips twisting into an angry scowl. He was trapped who-knows-where by a man that should have been a rotting corpse for months now.

He huffed in annoyance once again. He really would like some answers now, but there was nobody to provide them. Just his luck.

And just then the door leading to the cell block opened and a familiar blue hedgehog walked in, heading for a control panel that was situated on the other side of the room.

"Sonic?" Scourge asked, furrowing his brows in confusion. How could the blue ex-hero be here? And _why_ was he even here? It definitely couldn't be to save him as he had been here only for an hour at most—which surely wasn't enough time to find where he had disappeared to. "What are you doing here?"

Ice blue eyes surveyed the other's form, the green criminal frowning when he noticed the bruises decorating the other's body, the biggest one being on the side of his face—plus the hedgehog had one of his peach arms in a cast. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he had gotten into some kind of fight not long ago.

The blue hedgehog lazily turned to look at him before returning back to staring at the many screens connected to the control panel.

Scourge made a small growl at his question being ignored. "Hey! Answer me! Or at least help me out of these! They're fucking uncomfortable!" the green criminal shouted, his bound wrists rattling in their restraints.

The blue criminal sighed as he turned around, looking like a tired parent when their kid was throwing a temper tantrum. "Shut it, Scourge, I'm not here to listen to your whining."

Scourge was little taken aback by being addressed in such way; though he recomposed himself almost immediately. "Well, excuse me, then!" Scourge's tone was now irritated. "You see, I lived in the presumption that we were  _ allies _ ** _._ ** "

"Me too," the other answered, an expression of hurt appearing on his features for a moment before disappearing behind an impassive mask once again.

Scourge frowned in confusion as he didn't recall any-time he might have acted in a way that would anyhow question their alliance. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

The other sighed again. "That doesn't matter anymore."

"I think it does," Scourge growled, irritated that his supposed ally wasn't helping him for a reason that his blue look-alike obviously didn't want to share with him.

"It doesn't," the imposter said, hissing the response through gritted teeth.

The green hedgehog could easily say that he had just struck some painful nerve and though his instincts were screaming at him to leave the topic be, it wouldn't be him if he didn't push further. "Oh, I think it does."

There was a look of fury on the other's face now. "Listen to me, you _poor_ excuse for a Mobian," the blue criminal walked closer to the bars that separated them and gripped one of the bars tightly with one peach uninjured hand, "you better shut your pathetic mouth now before I make you."

"Oh, and how would you do that? With a duct tape?" Scourge mocked the other, a smug smirk on his muzzle. "It's not like you can do much with that broken arm."

The imposter made a deep growling sound in the back of his throat, green eyes glaring daggers into the hedgehog before them; however, just a moment later the anger left the other's features and was replaced with a look of contempt. "You can't do much even with both of your arms intact. I'm sure Fiona would agree with that." One blue brow rose in question. "Or was it that you just get bored of seeing her face and consider saving her a waste of energy?"

"Oh, you did _not_ _just_ do that," Scourge said, giving the other a hard stare, his previous smirk slowly disappearing from his face. He didn't care how even the blue ex-hero got to know about his girl-friend being left at the hands of Suppression squad as he himself had never bothered to tell him his actual reason for collecting the Chaos Emeralds but Scourge was definitely beating the shit out of his blue look-alike for _even_ suggesting the idea of him not caring about Fiona.

"You abandoned her," the other hissed, giving him such a hate-filled look that would stun average person; however, he was not an average person, he was _Scourge_.

And he was  _ livid _ .

"You have no fucking idea what happened back then," Scourge hissed, his body starting to glow with a greenish light as the power of Master Emerald that had been peacefully resting inside him was slowly waking up in response to his boiling emotions.

"Actually I do, Scourge," the other responded and turned back to the control panel. "It was the Anti-Sonic looking out only for himself, nothing new."

There was a sharp snapping sound, soon followed by a loud smashing sound. However, Fiona had no time to react—not even to turn around to see what the hell was Scourge doing—before being roughly smashed into the control panel, one of Scourge's now free hands curled around her currently blue throat, effectively cutting off her supply while making a wave of déjà vu wash over the criminal.

The green hedgehog was shining with a blinding green light, his ice-blue eyes filled with fury. "Don't you dare to call me Anti-Sonic! I am _not_ just another pitiful copy of Sonic like you! I am my own person! I am  _ Scourge _ !"

Fiona gasped for breath—which Scourge immediately took as sign he better tighten his hold more.

"And for your information," the green hedgehog's hand was now crushing her windpipe, making it impossible for her to breath, "I was only collecting all these Emeralds so I could rescue Fiona!"

Green eyes widened in surprise at hearing this new information.  _ Scourge wanted to save me...? _

Scourge's lips turned into a scowl before he carelessly flung the blue-and-peach body into the nearest wall, effectively knocking the blue criminal out without even giving the other a chance to respond anyhow or himself having the chance to learn the other had been Fiona herself all along.

The Destructix's leader stared at the unconscious form at the other side of the room, his whole body trembling in anger at his victim's sudden fainting. "You really are pathetic! You can't even take one hit before passing out!" He kicked the lifeless body on the floor, hoping to satisfy his anger at least a little bit.

It didn't work.

Scourge shot his former ally a glare before pinching the bridge of his nose as he took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, the glow around his body slowly growing weaker before disappearing completely about a minute later.

The green hedgehog turned to look at the control panel which the other had been staring at before, the various screens showing different areas of the base.

Scourge blinked in confusion as one screen seemed to be showing a group of four Mobians, from which two looked absolutely identical. "Two Stripeses...?"

Blue eyes traveled from one screen to another hoping he would be able to spot something that would explain this strange group. However, this matter was thrown out Scourge's priority list just a second later as his eyes locked on one of the screen which was showing something much more  _ interesting _ .

A smirk found its way back to the green criminal's face. "It seems it's time to search this shit-hole a little bit!"

~O~

_ Well, I guess that went pretty good _ _..._ Sonic mused as he took a look at their small group. Both pairs were walking a few feet apart from each other—as both Shadows were still suspicious of the other, watching their dimensional counterpart closely from safe distance.

Luckily, the two dark hedgehogs hadn't threatened each other anyhow since the first meeting.

...yet.

Sonic looked over to Knuckles to see what he was doing. The guardian looked uninterested in the situation, just occasionally stealing a glance at the rest of the group to check no bloodbath was happening.

Sonic moved his eyes from the red echidna back to the dark duo. It was an incredibly bizarre sight; the two looked _absolutely_ identical. Even their moves were perfectly synchronized! They actually looked more like a pair of robots than two living beings—Sonic was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to tell the two apart just by looks only.

However, he didn't really need to do so now, anyway, as each Shadow was visibly keeping to their side of the corridor, watching their dimensional twin like a hawk.

Sonic sighed.  _ This is going to be a long day... _

Green eyes traveled back to Knuckles, who still paid minimal attention to the rest of the group and instead kept an eye on the corridor as there was still high probability of a sudden robot attack.

Sonic continued to watch the echidna, an idea slowly forming inside his head.

Knuckles blinked in confusion as there was suddenly a peach arm thrown over his shoulders, the blue speedster now leaning onto him. "You up for a little chat?"

The red echidna stared at the blue Mobian before him for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. "Sure. Why not?"

~O~

"So, your world's Sonic has been missing for two months now?" the blue hero asked, earning himself a nod from the red echidna.

"Yes, he went to destroy Dr. Eggman's base and hasn't been seen since."

"And that imposter used his absence to get the Chaos Emeralds out of your Tails?" Sonic asked for clarification, earning himself another nod. "Well...that definitely sucks for you."

"Yeah, it does," Knuckles said, sighing. "Luckily, Shadow has been able to see past the imposter's disguise before any more damage could be done."

At the mention of the dark hedgehog's name Sonic looked at the duo of striped hedgehogs that were now ahead of them as Knuckles with Sonic had decided to stay in the back to chat about the differences of their worlds. Both Shadows were _still_ giving their doppelgänger a distrustful glance from time to time, both of them waiting for any wrong move that would give them the reason to attack the other.

Sonic sighed. By his standards the dark ex-agent was being paranoid. The duo hadn't done anything bad yet and didn't seem to plan to do anything like that anytime soon. But the blue hero had to admit that seeing your own double could be quite unnerving. It was a really strange experience to see someone who looked and spoke just like you...

Sonic shook his head, chuckling. "Our Shadows seem to be pretty similar, don't you think?"

Knuckles turned to gaze at the dark duo and after a moment he nodded. "Yes, they do. They even have the same level of paranoia."

Sonic grinned as he saw two pairs of dark ears twitch in annoyance. However, no other reaction of their owners followed. "You seem pretty similar to the Knuckles I know too. Do you also have an unhealthy obsession with a certain shiny rock?"

The echidna's eye twitched at his question and Sonic immediately knew the answer. "Heh, it seems some things never change."

"Like your talent to make me mad by a simple comment," Knuckles said, looking around their surroundings for a moment. The corridor wasn't completely white and empty anymore; there were some pipes running along the walls. Maybe they were finally getting into the core of this base?

The blue hero laughed. "One of the special talents of mine! Anyway, what about Rouge? Are you two married too?"

The look that blossomed on Knuckles' face after this question was definitely going on the list of the top five funniest things Sonic had ever seen in his life.

~O~

"Stop laughing finally!" Knuckles growled, punching the blue hedgehog slightly in the shoulder.

But Sonic just continued to laugh uncontrollably. " _Haha_ —I can't! The— _ha_ —look on your— _haha_ —face was just— _ha_ —priceless!"

The echidna made an annoyed sound at the back of his throat. "Stupid hedgehog."

The blue hero dried away the tears of laughter that had accumulated in the corners of his eyes, his chest rapidly raising and falling from the laughing fit. "Come on, Knux! I was just teasing you..."

Knuckles sighed, already too used to Sonic's antics. "So, the other me and Rouge are married?"

"Yes, and you guys seem pretty happy to me. So, maybe, try your luck with your Rouge!" the blue hero suggested with a playful bump to the other's shoulder. The echidna's cheeks immediately turned slightly red at the mention of the flirtatious bat. Thankfully, his red fur was making the blush hard to see for the others. But he still decided he better bring Sonic's focus to something else before the blue hero might notice it.

"Erm—What about you? Do _you_ have any love interests?"

Sonic could feel the familiar heat rush to his face as he was looking at his love interest at the very moment the question was uttered. The blue hero forced his gaze to the wall and so he missed how one dark ear visibly turned their way to listen on their conversation.

"Well, there is one person..."

~O~

"Erm—What about you? Do _you_ have any love interests?"

Shadow had noticed the way the Other Shadow suddenly became alert when Knuckles asked the question, the double's face slightly anxious and his whole body tense. It seemed that he was worried about Sonic's answer for some reason. Shadow curiously watched his double while carefully listening to the blue hero's response.

"Well, there is one person..."

The reaction was immediate. The worried look on the Other Shadow's face immediately morphed into a relieved one and then into a...hopeful one? His body was also visibly less tense than a moment ago.

Shadow scowled, his gaze moving from his double to Sonic, who was now looking at some point on the wall, even though the hero was previously staring right at them, and then back to his double, who now had the tiniest of smiles on his face.

Red eyes widened in realization.

_ You've got to be kidding me... _

~O~

"Mind sharing who exactly?" Knuckles inquired further, but Sonic just placed a finger on his lips, smiling mysteriously. "That's a secret."

The guardian tsked. "I'm not even surprised by that answer."

"You know me too well!" Sonic laughed, playfully hitting the echidna's arm. The echidna just rolled his eyes at the other's behavior, which only made the hero's grin grow wider. With this Knuckles it felt just like back in the old days...

"So, what do you think guys? Are we getting closer?" the blue hero asked, hoping to break the uncomfortable atmosphere that he could feel between the two dark hedgehogs in front him.

"It seems so. I can sense a strong trace of Chaos energy from the direction we are going to," the Other Shadow answered while his dimensional counterpart didn't say anything and just nodded in agreement, still deeply thinking if his recent discovery was right.

"Finally! I was itching for some action!" Sonic grinned, stretching his arms. "Let's do this!"

~O~

"I am getting chills! We are definitely at the right place!" Sonic grinned widely, the metal gate with the Doctor's symbol being the only thing that was separating him from the dozens of robots that he honestly looked forward to destroying.

—and maybe another version of Eggman to taunt; they still weren't quite sure in whose world they were currently.

"Sonic! Wait a moment!" Shadow's voice stopped the blue hero before he could click the red button to open the door and make a dramatic entrance.

"Huh? What's the matter, Shads?"

His dark companion walked over to him, a deep worry visible in his expression. "You still have the Emerald, don't you?"

Sonic reached into his head-quills, checking the Chaos Emerald was still in place. "Yeah. You want it?" Sonic asked as he took the Emerald out of its hiding spot—to him the Emerald was practically useless while Shadow could use the Emerald's power to make his Chaos attacks stronger...

"No. Keep it," the dark hedgehog said, earning himself a surprised look from his blue counterpart. "If things get out of hand, I want you to have a way out..."

Sonic just stared at the hedgehog before him for a moment and then he started to laugh, forcing the Chaos Emerald into his companion's hands. "Nice try, Shads, but I'm not leaving you here. No matter the circumstances."

The ex-agent seemed he wanted to protest but then he realized who he was dealing with and so he just snorted in mild amusement. "...I'll keep it in mind."

"You better." Sonic grinned. "Alright, guys! Everyone prepared for some badnik-thrashing action?"

Knuckles cracked his name-sakes, a smirk on his face. "Any time."

Both Shadows nodded.

"Alright, then..." The blue hero's grin got even wider. "Here we go!" he said, clicking the button.

The door started to slowly open. All four heroes immediately got into their battle stance, anxiously awaiting to see what was in the room.

The door fully opened.

And revealed something that neither of them had expected.


	28. Fate

"What the heck is _she_ doing here?!" Vector roared, gesturing towards the bat sitting right across him. "She's with the enemy, remember?!"

"Vector, please, calm down. I'm sure Commander has a good reason for inviting Rouge here," Espio said, his golden eyes never leaving the bat who he had helped to prove guilty of treason just a few days ago.

Rouge sent Espio a thankful look, now feeling little bit less tense than a moment ago, though still very _very_ nervous.

"All will be explained when the rest arrives," the Commander stated while giving the crocodile a hard look—a warning sign that he wouldn't tolerate any more exclamations of this kind.

Rouge looked over the people present. Vector was openly glaring at her. Espio was just looking at her, his expression emotionless. There were also Charmy with an armadillo that Rouge didn't recognize but from Knuckles' stories knew his name was Mighty. These two previously mentioned were watching her with curiosity, the bee a little bit more blatantly than the armadillo.

And the last one, which was sitting right next to Chaotix, was Amy who seemed to be as worried as her.

Rouge gulped heavily as her guts twisted in worry, making her wonder if _not_ bringing Knuckles with her was a good idea; she had sneaked away without saying a word when the guardian was busy collecting some more herbs for his medicines. She had only left note saying she would be back soon but nothing else.

The door leading to the meeting room, in which their little group was sitting, suddenly opened revealing the Babylon Rogues. The bird squad entered the room and then sat down onto the nearest seats, Jet looking pretty displeased. "This better be important! I was in the middle of an _awesome_ race when you called!"

The Commander sighed in exasperation. "It is. But we still have to wait for a few more people before we start."

In the next two minutes the 'few more' arrived. To Rouge's surprise it were Tails and Cream with Cheese. Rouge's eyes immediately locked only on Tails, who looked like he hadn't slept in days and had a thick bandage around his head. It took all Rouge's self-control not jump over the table and go all worrying-older-sister on the poor fox. Luckily, Amy did that just a moment later for her.

The Commander cleared his throat to get everyone's attention, the action effectively silencing the few people that had stricken a conversation in order to pass the time until everyone arrived.

The Commander stood up, taking a brief look at everyone before speaking up. "The GUN had acquired a new evidence confirming the innocence of Sonic the Hedgehog and thus all charges against him have been dropped."

There were various screams along the ways of 'What?!', 'You are joking!' and 'I told you Sonic would never do anything bad!'

But Rouge only wordlessly stared in shock at the human officer as he hadn't shared this information even with her.

The Commander slammed his hand onto the table which effectively startled everyone into silence; he wanted to continue his speech, but one timidly raised arm, made him stop. "Yes, Mr. Prower?"

Tails, with eyes full of hope, asked the question that was now running through the mind most of the occupants of the meeting room. "Might I ask what was this evidence, sir?"

The Commander sighed. "It was confirmed that there are, indeed, two Sonic the Hedgehogs around. The imposter, who is working with Destructix, and the real one that agent Rouge and agent Shadow have been seen interacting with."

Everyone in the room immediately turned to look at Rouge. However, the female bat could only focus only on Tails again as the young genius was staring at her with such hurt expression that made her heart break. The message was clear:  _ Why haven't you told me? _

"Because of this new finding, both agent Rouge and agent Shadow have been cleared of all accusations and are official members of the GUN again—"

Rouge could feel her body relax. The knowledge why had the Commander so suddenly called her—telling her their names have been cleared without explaining further—finally taking a little bit of emotional weight from her shoulders.

"Wait a moment there!" Jet suddenly spoke up, drawing attention of everyone to himself. "Why hasn't Sonic done anything about a double of him running around? It's already been four months since the other guy appeared!"

All eyes immediately moved to stare at Rouge again, all people present waiting for an explanation. The white bat gulped heavily; she really should have brought Knuckles, some moral support right now would have been nice.

She cleared her throat, giving himself a moment longer to compose herself with the action. "When Shadow found Sonic, which was about two months after the appearance of the imposter, Sonic was heavily injured and it took him two months to recover. However, we don't know what had happened those two previous months as Sonic himself couldn't remember what was happening at that time."

Jet snorted. "Pretty bad story if you ask me."

"But it is true!" none other than Cream had shouted this, slamming her hands on the table to emphasize her point. "I have seen both the real Mister Sonic and the evil Mister Sonic!"

The green hawk frowned, pointing at the rabbit with his thumb as he looked at the Commander. "What's this kid doing here?"

"I'm not a kid! I'm eight years old already!" Cream said, raising to her full length in her seat.

"Still a kid to me," Jet responded, which earned him an earful from the small bunny.

The Commander pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering why hadn't he retired years ago—he was honestly tired of having to deal with things like these—which, unfortunately, were happening a bit way too often lately. "Miss Rabbit, sit down. Mr. Hawk, please, refrain from making any comments of this kind."

Cream sat down but kept glaring at Jet, who was already ignoring her. "I'll try."

"Thank you." The Commander took a deep breath. "Agent Rouge, I believe you are in contact with agent Shadow and Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Uh? Yeah, sure," Rouge answered, a little surprised by the unexpected question.

"I need you to contact them as soon as possible. We will need all the help we can get as we have never been faced with such a threat like this," the Commander announced, making a small gesture with his hand—at which the lights in the room dimmed and on one of the walls appeared a projection of the Dr. Eggman's attack that had taken place just a few days ago. Tails immediately looked away from what was happening on the screen as he had been there when it took place, softly touching the bandage around his head.

"We don't understand how but it appears that Doctor Eggman is alive."

There were various gasps from the occupants of the room as at that moment the mad scientist flew into view, shouting out commands at his robots.

"His robots seem to be more durable than they used to be. But we believe that your skills and experience will be enough to overcome this difficulty."

A green-feathered hand was raised now.

"Yes, Mr. Hawk?"

"I am pretty sure I _didn't_ sign up for this," Jet said, clearly reluctant about risking his life.

"Who ever said this was matter of choice?" the Commander asked with a raised eyebrow, the response leaving the green hawk gaping like a gold-fish. "This is not about what you want, Mr. Hawk. This is about the fate of the _planet_ itself."

~O~

Fiona groaned in pain as she slowly regained consciousness. Her entire body was in  _ agony _ .

"I am so going to kill that bastard..." she hissed, propping herself on her healthy arm—which somehow managed to escape any kind of damage despite its owner getting assaulted twice in one day.

She sat up, her vision swimming for a moment before coming back to normal. She clutched her throbbing head, wincing in pain as her hand came in contact with an open wound. She drew her hand away from her head, looking at the white glove, which was now noticeably redder.

_ I'm bleeding...  _ _ s _ he realized, staring at the blood-stained cloth. Luckily, there wasn't much blood on the glove so it was safe to assume the wound wasn't too bad and could wait for a medical treatment for a couple of hours.

The imposter stood up, leaning on the slightly damaged control panel in order to steady herself, the memory of being roughly smashed into the thing flashing through her mind.

Along with Scourge's declaration...

Fiona wasn't sure how to feel about the declaration. Scourge had no reason to lie to her—he had no idea that underneath this blue-and-peach fur was Fiona Fox, after all. Scourge had no reason not to be honest with his presumed dimensional alter-ego. Which meant that what the green hedgehog had said was most likely a truth.

The criminal wanted to feel happy about, she really wanted to. She should feel happy that Scourge actually hadn't stopped caring about her and planned to save her.

But she didn't.

She would have much preferred the other alternative—that Scourge decided to abandon her because he stopped caring about her. It would be so much easier to hate Scourge that way and to take her revenge at the green hedgehog—which she really wasn't sure if she wanted to carry out anymore.

The only thing that Fiona was sure at the moment about was that she was  _l_ _ ivid _ . She was livid at Scourge for leaving her at non-existent mercy of Suppression Squad because even if the Mister-I-am-better-than-other-Sonics-thus-I-deserve-an-original-name planned on saving her—it was freaking  _eight_ months since that event! And Scourge expected her to rot in some filthy cell around for eight months until he deigned to save her?! No, such luck!

Fiona grunted as she began to walk; her entire body was aching and all she wanted was to lie down and forget about everything in the world, but there was still something she needed to do—give Scourge a _giant_ piece of her mind.

And with this goal in mind, she walked out of the cell block and set off to find the infamous Destructix's leader.

~O~

Gems.

_ Everywhere. _

Scourge stepped into the room that he had been looking for last twenty minutes, whistling loudly at the sight of all these devastatingly _powerful_ stones in one place. At the very moment that he was fully standing in the room he could feel a wave of immense power wash over him, the sensation giving him pleasant shivers.

_ Oh, yes, this is how I like it... _

The green hedgehog walked over to get a close look at the gems—which all seemed to be separated by kind into different containers. He could recognize various sets of Chaos Emeralds and his home-world's Anarchy Beryl. However, there were also different gems, different both in shape and size but he was pretty sure they all were just another zones' version of Chaos Emeralds.

He walked over to one of the containers, looking at a tag which was hanging from it. The tag read: G-04

Scourge frowned as he had no idea what was that combination supposed to mean. He looked over at different tags. But all of them just had different letters and numbers written on them.

Well, except one.

The green criminal walked over to the container which was holding the Anarchy Beryl and then read the tag.

Moebius

Scourge frowned as he looked over the containers again. Were all these tags supposed to be a place of the origin of these gems?

_...Wait a minute, why the hell do I even care?  _ he asked himself internally while eyeing the various containers, a wicked smirk slowly making its way to his muzzle. "It's time to have some fun!"

His fist broke the glass cover of the container at first try and just when he was about to take the gems out, all the lights in the room switched off, draping the room into a coat of darkness. However, it took only couple of heartbeats for the lights to come back to life. But now they were all flashing red and the unmistakable sound of alarm started to echo through the entire base.

Scourge collected the gems from the container into his arms with super-sonic speed and then immediately headed for the door—but he realized he had been too slow as his way was now blocked by horde of giant robots—which _all_ seemed to be powered by Chaos Emeralds which were embedded in their chests, the robots now raising their cannons to target him.

It was at that moment Scourge realized he fucked up.

"Shit."

~O~

Screens. Thousands of screens.

Sonic stepped into the room, his eyes wide in surprise as his gaze jumped from one screen to another. He made a step forward, then another and another until he was standing in the middle of the room—where he then started to turn around wildly trying to take a good look at the thousands of screens that were covering all the walls in the room. The others were trailing right after him, their expressions just as surprised as Sonic's.

"What on Mobius is this?" Knuckles asked, frowning when he saw himself freaking out over some little note on one of the screens; he was pretty sure that had never happened.

It was a great question as all these screens were showing them and their friends—or more like various other-worldly versions of them as Sonic realized after spotting the knights of the round table and Shahra with Ali-Baba in the midst of all these screens.

"Some kind of parallel universe camera system...?" Sonic suggested, which earned him three confused looks. Therefore, the hero immediately began to explain, "I recognize two of these worlds. The world of Arabian Nights and the Arthurian Legends..." He pointed to the two mentioned worlds. "And I think I've spotted Blaze's world around here somewhere too..."

The other three had seemed lost until he had mentioned Blaze's world—which honestly surprised Sonic as he had expected his Shadow to know what he was speaking about as they surely had to speak about their separate adventures sometime in their relationship...

"So, what is this place then? Some kind of a freaky inter-dimensional base?" Knuckles asked, looking over the screens one more time.

"Almost on point. But next time use 'prodigious' instead of 'freaky', please," a new voice sounded from somewhere above them, all four heroes immediately looking up.

There was a dark silhouette of person staring at them from above, the lighting in the room making it hard to see any details. However, they could all pretty easily say the man was fat with a ridiculously big mustache.

"Eggman!" Knuckles roared, immediately shifting into a battle stance—a robot attack usually followed right after Doctor's sudden appearance.

Which, however, did not happen today.

The man chuckled, waving his finger. "Wrong answer! Try again."

"What?" Knuckles said, not understanding what was wrong what he had just said. In his opinion, the man couldn't be anyone else than Dr. Eggman.

But the dark agents immediately realized who it could only be if it wasn't Dr. Eggman. "Dr. Nega," both Shadows hissed at once, this time not shooting each other an annoyed look right after; it was dangerous to look away from the madman even for a second.

Right after the dark duo's exclamation, all the lights in the room switched on and thus making the man perfectly visible for all the people present. Dr. Nega smiled broadly from his high post, opening his arms widely. "The one—and only!"

~O~

Scourge gave a maniacal laugh as he ripped apart the last robot with his bare hands, the loud screeching of metal tearing being heavenly music to his ears. He let the remains of the robot drop to the ground, smiling in satisfaction.

It had taken just twenty seconds for him to destroy all seven robots.

Smiling, Scourge made a deep guttural sound as he savored the feeling of the immense the power that now coursed through his body, the power manifesting itself by keeping his usually green fur purple and his eyes red—a clear, warning sign to anyone he was in his super form. He had been forced to use the just stolen gems to turn himself super as the robots had proved impossible to be defeated with only his natural power.

However, once he was in his super form, the robots stood no chance.

The purple criminal extended his arm, the limb soon enveloped in a faint glow. The Emeralds hidden amongst the remains of the robots soon came floating out of the metal scraps and then rotated around Scourge's body for a minute before promptly disappearing into his body. Their energy immediately mixed with the energy that had already been flowing through Scourge's veins, the combined power making Scourge's body glow brighter as it literally started to radiate from his body.

Scourge knew he should use his newly-acquired power to teleport himself to Moebius and finally save Fiona; however, he also had some unsettled business with a certain Doctor. And Fiona surely wouldn't mind waiting for a few more minutes, right?

Scourge grinned as he let a small glowing sphere form in his palm and then without a moment of hesitation threw it into the ceiling, which then shattered into millions of pieces, the power of the explosion shaking the entire building violently.

Grinning, Scourge began to approach this the newly made opening. It was time to play hide and seek with a Doctor...

~O~

But the smile on the madman's face lasted only for few seconds, as it was soon replaced by an unreadable expression. "Now, tell me—What exactly are you doing in my base?"

"Spoiling whatever megalomaniac plan that you have at your mind at the moment," Sonic replied, shrugging his shoulders casually.

"Well, I'm sorry for having to tell you this but you are too late for that," Dr. Nega chuckled, clearly feeling no sorrow for having to tell them this.

Sonic frowned, an anxious feeling settling in his stomach. "And why is that so?"

"Because the conquering of your worlds has already started!" Dr. Nega smirked before clapping his hands for no apparent reason. "And now if you excuse me, I'll go see how marvelously it is going along."

"What?! Oh, no, you won't—!" Sonic shouted and then attempted to jump up at the platform at which the madman was standing; only to hit a red forcefield that seemed to appear out of nowhere. The blue hero fell back to the ground, hissing and grasping his hand as it stung from touching the energy barrier.

Dr. Nega sent him a triumphant smile before disappearing out of their view—most likely through a door that they couldn't see from the lower ground.

Sonic sharply turned around to look at the other three, who all were wearing a troubled expression on their face due. "We need to go after—!"

However, the rest of Sonic's sentence was left unheard as it was drowned in the various screams of surprise from the heroes as the ground under them exploded unexpectedly, sending all of them flying into various directions. Everything electrical in the room short-circuited just a second later, causing the entire room to fall into darkness as neither the screens nor the lights were illuminating the room anymore.

Which, however, wasn't the problem anymore. As just a moment later, Scourge came flying through the hole in the ground, the glow of his body enough to illuminate the room at least faintly, the purple hedgehog's red eyes immediately scanning the room for the Doctor he was searching for.

Sonic groaned in pain as he slowly got back to his feet, looking up to see what was the strange source of the light.

And green eyes locked with red eyes.

"Another Sonic? Is there some kind of reunion I wasn't invented to?"

It took Sonic a moment to realize who was the purple hedgehog before him as he had never seen the other's super form before, the only clue for him to guess who the flying hedgehog was being Scourge's attire. "Scourge," he breathed, feeling apprehension fill him.

A wicked smile found its way to Scourge's face as he teleported before the blue hedgehog, his glowing hand tightly curling around the other's throat. The blue hero immediately began gasping for breath, his hands coming up to force the hand, which was crushing his windpipe, away from his throat.

However, it proved to be an impossible feat with Scourge's force being unnaturally great due to his transformation.

"I planned to go searching for Eggman. But maybe we could enjoy some fun the two of us firstly—What do you say?" Scourge raised his free hand up, curling it into fist, planning to start the 'fun'—which, in his opinion, was smashing Sonic's face in.

"Chaos Lance!"

Scourge looked to his left in confusion, not aware there was anyone beside the two of them. However, this was a wrong move as it earned him a viciously red chaos bolt right to his face. The super-hog screamed in pain and surprise as he stumbled backwards, letting go of Sonic in the process—which Shadow immediately used to get the wheezing blue hero away from the super hedgehog, whose focus was now on the Other Shadow as he had been the one that threw the attack.

"You fucker!" Scourge growled in anger as he opened his stinging eyes, the pain of the attack still lingering there. That was one bad thing about super transformations—they might make your body invulnerable, but you still feel the pain.

The purple hedgehog raised both of his arms high into the air, a much bigger sphere than the one he used to blow up the ceiling before forming in his hands—just like the crazy smile on his face. "Take this, bastard!"

At the very moment Scourge moved his arms to throw the sphere, the Other Shadow took out the blue Chaos Emerald that Sonic had given him earlier. And so when the attack left Scourge's hands completely, the dark hedgehog had already screamed, "Chaos Control!"

The time slowed down abruptly—giving the Other Shadow enough time to get himself out of the harm's way. However, at the very moment he tried to take a first step something...went horribly wrong.

Without any warning, the time flow returned back to normal—leaving the Other Shadow only to stare in horror at the rapidly approaching sphere. There was no time to run. There was no time for him to try another Chaos Control.

There was only one thing he could do.

And so...he just closed his eyes, bracing himself for being erased from the existence.


	29. Unforeseen

A scream filled the room, the sound carrying such an unspeakable pain that it made everyone's fur stand on end as they had never heard anyone make such a sound, the originator of this scream sinking to the ground just a moment later.

Strangely, it wasn't the Other Shadow who had let out this scream.

It was Sonic.

The blue hero was staring wide eyed at the smoking form of his dear friend, the dark body lying motionlessly on the ground and barely recognizable, burned heavily by Scourge's attack. Sonic's entire body was shaking like a leaf in the wind as his mind kept replying the horrible scene that had just taken place before his eyes.

_No! You can't be dead!_ Sonic felt himself screaming internally, but in the outer world only sobs left his throat, which were soon accompanied by tears escaping his eyes. _You can't..._

The dark body just continued to lie at the same spot without any signs of life, diminishing the tiny flame of hope that had been left in Sonic's heart more and more with each passed second. Sonic knew that it was impossible for the dark hedgehog to be still alive. But his legs still refused to work and carry him to his comrade's body as a little voice from a far-away part of his mind kept insisting that as long as the other's death wasn't confirmed the Other Shadow still might—by a work of some miracle—be somehow alive and the reason for his stillness might be just an incapability to move caused by his severe injuries.

"Oops."

Sonic's eyes sharply turned to stare at the source of the noise—who happened to be none other than Scourge. The purple hedgehog's fingers were touching his lips, partly hiding them, a gesture of someone that was clearly aware that they had just done something they shouldn't have but which felt no shame or regret for doing it. "It seems I've killed him."

The little voice in the back of Sonic's mind fell silent upon hearing this comment, the hope that the Other Shadow might still be alive disappearing completely and instead being replaced with a feeling of intense _rage_ caused by Scourge's amused tone.

The blue hero growled like a feral animal, the fury he felt giving him enough power to stand once more. The blue hero lunged forward, planning to make Scourge pay for what he had just done. But Sonic hadn't even had the chance to make two steps before he was forcefully tugged back by his wrist, the action sending him crashing back into the person behind him. The blue speedster sharply turned around to spat some cruel remark into the face of whoever dared to stop him.

However, he found himself unable to say anything, feeling as if someone had just punched him hard in the gut in that moment—as he was met with the face of the person whom he wished to avenge.

"Get a hold of yourself! He didn't sacrifice himself just for you to get killed a minute after!" Shadow snarled angrily, his tone clearly saying he wouldn't accept any protests. "Don't let it consume you! You need to be  _strong_ .  _F_ _ or him _ . Do you understand?"

Sonic nodded his head meekly, turning his eyes to the ground as he found himself unable to look at Shadow; just seeing the dark agent's face was enough to make his eyes well up with tears again.

Shadow's eyes moved to take a look at Scourge, who was watching their little exchange with a curious expression, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"Go help Knuckles," the dark hedgehog murmured to the blue hero as he made a step forward, in the process letting go of Sonic's wrist—which he had been holding all this time to ensure the blue hero wouldn't attempt to jump straight into the danger once again. The blue speedster seemed hesitant for a moment but then he turned around and went to help the trapped echidna.

Calm red eyes met blazing crimson ones as Shadow's voice echoed through the room. "What do you want?"

A lazy smile found its way to Scourge's face as he let himself drop to the ground and then started to approach the other hedgehog at a leisurely pace. "I want many things..."

"And what  _ exactly  _ do you want from him?" Shadow asked, gesturing to Sonic, who was now trying to get Knuckles from under a pile of rubble under which the guardian had been trapped for last five minutes.

Scourge smirked, an evil glint in his eyes. "I want to make him  _ suffer _ ."

The two were standing just mere feet away from each other, the proximity making Shadow able to finally sense how much power the other possessed. The amount of power rivaled to the amount one would acquire if they turned hyper, but it was slightly below it.

Though Scourge would definitely not have any problem to kill them all just with one swift move of hand if he wanted to.

"For what reason?" Shadow asked, stalling for time. If he kept Scourge busy long enough his transformation would run out and then they would finally have a chance to defeat him—because as long as Scourge was in a super state going against him would be a sure suicide—his doppelgänger being the unfortunate example.

"I just don't like his face." The glowing hedgehog shrugged his shoulders, acting as if wanting to beat up someone just because of what they looked like was something normal.

The dark agent suppressed the urge to reply with something along the lines 'Really? Then you have to hate looking in the mirror,' as in his opinion Scourge looked like a bad re-color of Sonic. But such comment would definitely anger Scourge and Shadow definitely didn't want to join his double's fate. And so Shadow said, "Well, you must be fun at parties."

"I am." the Destructix's leader chuckled, Shadow using the moment to sneak a look at the other two. Sonic was currently trying to wake up Knuckles as the echidna had been knocked out by the unexpected blast. However, he didn't seem to have much luck as Knuckles' eyes stayed tightly shut.

Crimson eyes turned back to stare at Scourge. "You said you were looking for Doctor. Shouldn't you go find him?"

The purple hedgehog looked a little surprised at the unexpected change of topic. "Oh, come on, Stripes! The party hasn't even started and you are already chasing me away?" Scourge raised his eye-ridge playfully. There was a warm smile on his face but his red eyes were shining with a promise of suffering; Shadow could feel his inner alarm going off at seeing this expression.

The dark agent took a quick glance at the blue and red duo behind him. Knuckles was finally awake and Sonic, who was still by his side, was helping him to stand up as the echidna seemed to be rather disorientated. The speedster's shoulders were still shaking slightly and he seemed to have trouble breathing—which was probably because of the sobs that he tried hard to prevent from leaving his chest as from his current position he had a clear view at the burnt body of his fallen comrade.

Shadow sharply turned back to Scourge, frowning as he realized that he had to find an non-violent way to get them all out of this situation—or at least obtain the duo some time to recover. Knuckles would need at least few more minutes to recover, but Sonic... he definitely wasn't going to calm down anytime soon and his unstable emotional state could very easily lead to their demise in a battle; and Scourge would definitely try to upset the blue hero even more. So Shadow decided he better stall for some more time. "Just thought you might want to try to catch Dr. Nega when you still have the chance. It's been some time since he left."

Scourge furrowed his eye-ridges in confusion. "Who the fuck is 'Nega'?"

Shadow mirrored his expression; neither of them was aware they had been both speaking about different people all this time.

"Dr. Nega— the one to whom this base belongs," the dark agent clarified, but the clarification just made the purple hedgehog frown even more.

"Has Eggman decided to change his name or something?"

The dark agent scowled. They way the other was speaking it was clear he wasn't aware that someone of name Dr. Nega even existed. So the only possible explanation could be that Scourge was actually talking about different Eggman than Dr. **_Eggman_** Nega as Dr. Nega always introduced himself to anyone by his full title.

Dark eye-ridges furrowed in a deep thought. He remembered Sonic mentioning something about their Dr. Eggman being dead, so that one was out of game. And the only other Dr. Eggman that he knew about was...

Crimson eyes widened in realization as he came to the same conclusion that his world's Tails. Dr. Nega had to be the one that had taken Dr. Eggman out of GUN's grasp—probably to get the Doctor help him with conquering their worlds as he put it.

_ But why his world?  _ Shadow looked from the corner of his eyes at Sonic, who was now intently watching the two of them, one of Knuckles' arms thrown over his shoulders as he helped the red echidna to keep his balance.

"Hey! I asked you a que—!" Scourge growled as made a threatening step forward, planning to make Shadow pay attention to him once more—by force. But suddenly Scourge flickered like a broken TV, the real color of his fur becoming visible for a moment before changing back to bright purple once again.

Unfortunately for him, the others had noticed it too.

"Shit! My transformation is running out!" he shouted in alarm, not realizing he was speaking his thoughts aloud. He leapt back to the gaping hole in the floor and the jumped down to retrieve more Emeralds that would keep his super transformation active, the heroic trio immediately rushing to the edge of the hole to see why the super hedgehog had so suddenly decided to leave the scene.

All three pairs of eyes widened in surprise.

"Are those Chaos Emeralds?" Knuckles asked, still a little bit disorientated and thus unsure if he was having hallucinations or not, as seeing  _ thousands  _ of Chaos emeralds definitely wasn't an ordinary sight.

"It seems so." Shadow frowned as he finally realized that the strong chaos signal that he had felt had to be because of this. The sight was both astonishing and terrifying; astonishing that the Doctors had managed to get their hands on so many emeralds and terrifying that they had  _ actually  _ managed to do that as they were able to cause a lot of trouble even with one Emerald.

He was pretty sure that he really didn't want to know what they could do cause with thousands of them.

However, this was not the time to wonder about what kind of destruction could Doctors cause as there was currently more urgent problem—in a form of certain purple hedgehog that had just broken another container to get to the Emeralds inside it.

Shadow was about to jump down to stop Scourge, but he suddenly found himself acting the part of a support pillar for Knuckles as Sonic had made the echidna lean on the dark hedgehog's shoulder instead of his own at that moment.

"Hold him for a moment," the blue speedster said, his eye shining with an emotion that Shadow had never seen in the blue hero's eyes—which made the dark agent realized that Sonic definitely shouldn't be the one to go against Scourge.

But before Shadow could even voice his protest, Sonic had already jumped down.

~O~

"Are you prepared to pay?"

Scourge sharply turned around, his fur now back to its original color as his transformation had ended just seconds ago—which caused the previously used Emeralds to scatter around the room, dull and unusable; however, the green criminal had already a new set of Emeralds to transform himself in his hands.

There was a set of Emeralds circling around Sonic's body, just waiting for a moment to fuse with the blue hedgehog, who was currently glaring daggers at his dimensional double, the emeralds surrounding him slowly changing from their vibrant colors to bland gray as they synced with the negative emotions that were currently wracking their controller.

Scourge smirked, a thought that this might be a bad idea not even crossing his mind as he fully believed defeating his alter-ego would be a piece of cake for him. "Anytime."

"Alright then."

The two transformed and just a moment later the battle of Super Scourge against Dark Super Sonic started.

~O~

Shadow and Knuckles could only stare at the crazy battle that was happening on the lower ground. The two hedgehogs were moving at insane speed, jumping from one side of the room to the other in a split of second constantly, making it impossible for Shadow to jump down and join the battle—as he would get sliced into pieces before his feet could even touch the ground.

And so the dark agent just continued to watch the fighting duo, noting that Sonic actually seemed to be having the upper hand in this battle due to Scourge having trouble with keeping up with his pace; however, it was clear that the only reason why the blue hero had the upper hand was because of his emotional state—as the more the person was controlled by emotions, the more power the Emeralds provided to their controller.

But because of this, Sonic was using much bigger amount of power that he was supposed to—which could eventually lead to his transformation time getting shortened drastically. And if he didn't manage to defeat Scourge by that time...

It would all be over for them.

~O~

Scourge flung himself at the hero again, his fist colliding with the other's jaw with a horrible sound. However, Sonic didn't seem affected anyhow by the blow and instead drove his knee deep into the other's stomach, knocking the breath out of his opponent with the action; however, Scourge didn't even have the time to remember how to breath before another blow was delivered to his body—this time to his left temple, Sonic's left hook clicking like a puzzle piece into its hollow.

Gasping for breath, the Destructix's leader fell to the ground, his mind running thousand miles per hour as he tried tried to figure out why Sonic seemed so much stronger than him when both of them used the same amount of Emeralds.

He would get more—but Sonic was making sure he _wouldn't_ get the chance.

However, this train of thoughts was cut short as he was hauled back to his feet by Sonic roughly seizing the hold of his jacket, the proximity allowing him to feel the rage and sorrow coming from Sonic in waves, the emotions almost overwhelming him with their intensity.

But Scourge didn't let himself get stunned by this; instead he head-butted his opponent, effectively making Sonic release him.

The purple hedgehog flew upwards back into the screen room with Sonic right at his tail, the red and dark duo immediately moving to the faraway corner of the room as it was clear things were to get crazy pretty soon.

"Let's spice things up a little bit!" Scourge screamed, the too familiar crackling purple energy starting to jump between Scourge's hands, slowly turning into a form of energy ball. Sonic immediately copied him, a ball of dark blue energy soon forming between his hands too.

A wicked smirk found it's way to Scourge's face as he prepared himself to throw the sphere. "Hasta la vista, baby!" he screamed, releasing the sphere from his hand—to which Sonic responded by doing the same right after.

The spheres collided midway, their energies immediately seeping into each other, forming a giant dark purple colored ball of crackling energy that seemed as if it were collapsing into itself; but then it began to expand, creating a giant shock-wave that sent both super hedgehogs crashing into a wall.

The two look-alikes both groaned as they stood up, their forms no longer glowing as they had both de-transformed mid-flight, neither of them sure what exactly had just happened.

And then they saw it.

An even thought both were thinking the same thing, Scourge was the only one to voice his thoughts, "Well... Shit."

~O~

_We need to fix this._ ** _Fast!_** Sonic realized, his mind racing as it tried to find a solution to their current problem. Normally, it always took just winning a fight with some kind of monster to restore everything back to normal; however, there was no monster this time and because of this Sonic had no idea what he was supposed to do to fix the growing tear in the space-time continuum.

He looked to Scourge, who just shrugged his shoulders in 'Why do you expect me to know what to do?' way. And so Sonic looked to Shadow and Knuckles, hoping the duo would know a solution. However, their blank expressions convinced him of the opposite pretty fast.

But he still decided to ask—just in case he had read the two wrong. "Any of you has any idea how to fix this mess? We need to do something!"

"Chill down, blue! Leave it up to these guys to fix it!" Scourge responded, gesturing to the rip.

Sonic frowned in confusion at the strange remark, turning to look at the rip through which a group of people wearing red and gold over-all suits with metal helmets on their heads could be seen; all of them talking animatedly about something that Sonic couldn't hear.

Thought Sonic wasn't really interested in knowing what they were talking about—as the reason why on Mobius they all seemed to be standing at a ninety degree angle from the ground was definitely much more interesting question in his mind.

The strange people didn't seem to notice them—or maybe they just didn't care about them. But then a new one arrived at the scene and this one undoubtedly noticed them. The male—which Sonic presumed from his body shape as because of the helmet he couldn't really see the person's face—gestured to some of his colleagues and then pointed at them.

Sonic watched in astonishment as the male then made a somersault through the rip and then landed on the ground perfectly, his body's gravity field seemingly orientating itself to their world automatically, the male soon followed by another four people. But Sonic's staring in awe was cut short as he found himself at gunpoint along with Scourge, Shadow and Knuckles.

"Oh, come on, Zonic! You haven't been here even for five minutes and you are already pointing a gun at my face? What kind of greeting is that?" the green criminal asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"This is your work, Scourge, isn't it?" the leader, obviously named Zonic, asked, gesturing with his head to the reality rip.

"Kinda. Bluie here has a hand in this too," Scourge responded, pointing at Sonic, who yet had to say anything in this conversation.

Sonic could feel how the male's eyes focused of him—despite the fact that he couldn't see the other's face through the visor. "Who are you? And how exactly are you all involved in this?" Zonic asked, stealing a fast glance at Shadow and Knuckles, who were just calmly standing at the other side of the room as they had decided that they won't try to fight unless shots were fired.

For some mysterious reason, Sonic had a feeling this people meant no harm even though they were holding all of them at a gunpoint; so he decided to follow his gut feeling and to tell the truth. "I am Sonic the Hedgehog and those," Sonic gestured to Shadow and Knuckles, "are my...ugh, well, I believe allies would be the best word. You see, our situation is pretty complicated. We were trying to stop certain megalomaniac from taking over the world, but then Scourge appeared. We got into a fight with him and during this fight we accidentally caused  _ this _ ." The blue hero gestured to the rip that finally seemed to stop its expansion.

"Why were you fighting?" Zonic asked, frowning when he noticed the way Sonic flinched at the question. "He...killed my friend." Sonic's eyes involuntarily moved to look at the area where the Other Shadow's body was still motionlessly lying.

All the uniformed people turned to stare at the burned body, some of them visibly flinching at the sight.

"...Murder. I didn't think you'd ever sink that low, Scourge," Zonic said, gesturing to one of his colleague's to take his place in keeping an eye—and gun—at Scourge as he went to examine the body, the green criminal shouting just one thing after him, "Sorry to break your expectations, Zonic!" his tone more mocking than apologetic as expected.

Zonic crouched down, getting a closer look at the damaged body, the stench of burnt flesh getting stronger due to the proximity. Most of the dark hedgehog's fur had been burnt away, only little patches remaining in some places. There were heavy burns covering the bigger portion of the body, making the male almost unrecognizable.

The head zone cop watched for any signs of life like a slow rise and fall of chest or twitch of a hand for next few seconds but he couldn't see any. It was no surprise; it would be a  _ miracle  _ if the male was still alive.

But it was his duty to confirm that the man was truly dead as he couldn't hold Scourge responsible for something that wasn't confirmed.

Zonic sighed as he took off one of his blue glove as the thickness of it made would make it unable for him to feel a person's pulse—though in this case it definitely wouldn't make much difference in his opinion.

Peach hand softly took one of the dark wrists, Zonic immediately pressing two of his fingers on the artery to check for the pulse.

He waited five seconds for a beat, but nothing was happening. After five more he was about to declare them man dead but then, without any warning—

_BADUM._

Zonic's green eyes widened in shock as he couldn't believe what he was sensing. The blue zone cop anxiously waited for another beat to ensure he wasn't imagining things.

_BADUM._

The head zone cop stared in shock at the dark hedgehog before him, his mind not able to comprehend how the male could still be alive despite being wounded so severely. Green eyes focused once more on upper body of the dark hedgehog, this time noticing _the extremely_ slight movement of the other's chest.

Zonic sharply turned back to his squad. "Zespio!"

Zonic's commanding voice drew the attention of not just his chameleon subordinate but also the attention of the rest of the room. And every single one of them was rendered speechless by Zonic's next words.

"Immediately call the medics here! This man is still alive!"


	30. Devastating Revelation

"I wonder if something like a Sleeping Beauty syndrome exists—because if it does then you definitely have it, Shads," Sonic chuckled, hoping that his bad jokes would make the dark hedgehog wake up; the dark agent would definitely not approve of being made fun of. But the Other Shadow just stayed sleeping, not showing any signs of waking up soon.

Sonic sighed. It had already been a week since the incident and even though the dark hedgehog was mostly healed—which Sonic believed was partly thanks to Shadow's enhanced healing and partly thanks to Zone police's highly-advanced technology—he still had yet to wake up.

"Heh. Now I understand how you had to feel when I was in your place," the blue hero said, remembering his own awakening at Shadow's house, which had happened only a month ago but which now felt like it had already been an eternity since. "It's not a nice feeling...this uncertainty..."

_If you even wake up,_ Sonic added internally, shaking his head just a moment later. "What am I even thinking?! You are the Ultimate Life form! Of course, you'll wake up!"

_...Right? _

Sonic shook his head again, chasing away the feeling of doubt that the dark hedgehog might not wake up. Because he _was_ going to wake up. Don't try to convince him otherwise!

And just then, there was a slight movement coming from the Other Shadow's bed, green eyes locking onto the previously unmoving form, which was now slightly twitching, the Other Shadow's face twisted in discomfort.

Sonic held his breath, anxiously waiting what would come next.

The Other Shadow let out a groan, squeezing his eyes like if he was in pain, but then, to Sonic's utter joy, he slowly opened them. "Shadow?"

One dark ear positioned itself in his direction, a pair of confused crimson eyes soon following it. "...Sonic?"

"Morning, Shads," the blue hero gave his friend a blinding smile, green eyes shining with sheer happiness as the cobalt hero barely kept himself from hugging the dark agent—doing so could irritate his friend's wounds. "Or maybe it's afternoon already, I've been here for some time already—"

"Are you okay?"

The question came like a bolt out of a clear sky, catching Sonic out of guard completely. "What? Why on Mobius are you asking me such question? I should be the one asking this!"

However, the Other Shadow just repeated his question as he forced his body into an upright position, the usual stern look replacing his previous confused one. "Are you okay?"

Sonic stared at his friend for a long time, trying to figure out what exactly was going on in the other's spiky head. "...I am. No worries," the blue hero responded, standing up to make a small spin. "See? Not even a scratch!—Which, however, I can't say about you."

The Other Shadow looked at himself in curiosity, noting his almost healed injuries and the unusually short fur he now had, the unpleasant memory of the way he had acquired them flashing through his mind—the sensation of being burned alive... "How long have I been sleeping?"

"A week," Sonic answered as he sat down again. "But don't worry! You haven't missed out anything interesting. Well, except Scourge's arrest. Man, it was really amusing to watch how he tried to escape zone cops—"

"Zone cops?" the Other Shadow interrupted him, raising one eye-ridge in confusion.

"Oh, yeah, you've already been _knocked out_ when they arrived at the scene..." Sonic mumbled, obviously still uncomfortable about saying that the Other Shadow had been practically at the death's door back then. "Alright then! Let me give you a brief explanation—"

Sonic then proceeded with explaining what exactly had happened during his unconscious state—the fight with Scourge, the zone police's arrival at scene, Scourge's arrest, Dr. Nega's arrest—as the man had made the wrong choice of returning back to his base due to an warning of security breach in the gem room that the base's control system had sent him—and also about the fruitless search for the imposter.

"—We are currently at the Zone Police's HQ. Zonic is going to send us back home once you are in a shape to travel. The other you and Knuckles are still here as well because it was dangerous to travel between the worlds as long as the reality rip has been opened. But they managed to close it yesterday so it should be alright to travel now," Sonic finished his long speech, giving his dark companion a grin. "Everything clear now?"

But before the the dark hedgehog could answer, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in!" Sonic called out automatically, turning to the door—and thus missing the annoyed expression that crossed his companion's face as he didn't appreciate their conversation getting interrupted.

The door opened and another version of Shadow walked in. "Faker, Zonic wishes to speak with you."

"Huh? Me? About what?" the blue hero asked, raising his eye-ridge in surprise. Zonic had only spoken to him the first day when they were brought into the No Zone and then twice when they had ran into each other in the Zone Police's cafeteria.

(Though all of their conversations were short as apart from him Zonic wasn't as talkative as other Sonics and he had to work all the time—being a head zone cop was apparently a very time-consuming job.)

"He hasn't said what. Just that it is urgent," Shadow responded, his crimson eyes locking onto his double for a moment. "You better hurry."

"Well, if it's urgent..." Sonic mumbled as he stood up, "I'll be right back! So don't start a fight you two! Okay?" Sonic said, winking.

Both dark hedgehogs rolled their eyes at his comment, Sonic taking this as a sign it was safe to leave the two alone—and so he left the room, unaware of one longing look and one annoyed look that followed him before he disappeared behind the door.

However, the door didn't even have a time to close after Sonic, before the peaceful silence of the room was broken again. "Sweet heavens, stop it already."

"Excuse me?" the Other Shadow said, raising his eye-ridge in mild confusion.

"Stop giving him such a _lovesick_ look all the time. It's sickening to see myself do that," Shadow hissed, his disgust clearly showing on his face as he turned to gaze out of the window. Most likely to emphasize how sickening it was—that he couldn't even bear _looking_ at the Other Shadow at this moment.

The Other Shadow's eyes turned into slits as he looked at his dimensional double. "Who are you to order me?"

"Obviously your voice of reason. Because you seem to have lost yours," Shadow answered as he turned his head, the two locking gazes. "Because falling for faker definitely isn't something that could happen to any version of me in their right state of mind."

The Other Shadow snorted in amusement. "That's the reason why it's called 'falling'— it will happen regardless if you want it or not. It works just like gravity."

"That still doesn't mean you have to act like an absolute fool because of it," Shadow responded as he crossed his arms over his chest, a frown of disapproval on his face.

The Other Shadow mirrored his expression. "I don't see how I am the 'fool' here. I haven't come here to lecture my alter ego how they should behave, expecting them to start obeying my words just because I am some parallel version of them."

"I haven't come to lecture you," Shadow responded, scowling at the accusation. "I came to knock some common sense back into your head—because you are _not_ behaving rationally at all."

"Love is not rational." The Other Shadow snorted in amusement. "And that's what so  _ great  _ about it."

"There is nothing great about love," Shadow replied, saying the word 'love' like if it was a name of a hated enemy. "It is only a source of pain."

The Other Shadow frowned at his double's words, which sounded way too familiar, his eyes widening slightly in realization what  _ actually  _ had this conversation been about all this time.

"Stop trying to convince yourself of that—you know, it's not truth," the Other Shadow replied, his double's eyes narrowing dangerously at his remark.

There was a long silent pause, in which the two just stared intensely at each other, the Other Shadow silently challenging the other to stop with his pretending, while Shadow kept on refusing to back down and admit that his alter-ego might be right—both to himself and to the Other Shadow.

"Even so, you can't deny that love is bound to bring pain at one point—" Shadow closed his eyes for a moment and then reopened them, but this time—they were shining with an inner flame, "When it comes to _us._ " — _The immortal ones_ _—_ "So, tell me: How can you be so at peace about _loving_ _Sonic_? He's not ageless like us. You are going to outlive him. You're going to see him _die_. You are going to _suffer_ because of it. Are you really willing to live for millennia with that pain?"

It was actually more of a statement than a question, Shadow obviously not able to wrap his head around the idea that apart from him the Other Shadow was still willing to let himself deeply care about people again after experiencing the pain of losing Maria.

"Nobody says I have to live that long," the Other Shadow responded, shrugging his shoulders slightly. It was true that his body could last that long if he wished to do so—his regeneration abilities would make it a ridiculously easy task. But that didn't meant he planned to use the chance. "Nobody says I have to live even past hundred."

Shadow frowned in confusion, unsure why was his doppelgänger speaking like this. "What do you mean?"

"Everyone can choose how much time they want to spend in this world," the Other Shadow responded, which made Shadow frown even more as the dark agent still didn't know what was his alter ego speaking about

But then the implication of his double's words sank in, the dark agent's crimson eyes widening in a shock. "You—"

"—I see a short happy life a better alternative to living a long miserable life," the Other Shadow interrupted him, shrugging his shoulders. "But if you prefer the latter..."

Shadow's mind was blank. Shadow had really though his dimensional counterpart was insane or maybe just masochist—because before he couldn't think of any other explanation for his double's involvement with Sonic as he could see a romantic relationship with anyone only like a future source of suffering once the person died. The idea that there actually might have a solution to this problem—albeit so  _ drastic _ _ — _ not really passing through his mind.

Shadow's face was expressionless, the other's idea running around chaotically in his brain as he stared at his mirror image, not saying anything. The Other Shadow chuckled. "You have never thought of that possibility, have you?"

Shadow's silence was his only answer.

~O~

"Oh, come on, babe! I said I'm sorry!"

"I don't care about your apology! I don't even have any idea who the hell you are! So just leave me alone finally!" the Other Sonic shouted, thrashing in Scourge's hold as he tried to free himself.

"Come on, Fiona! I know you are mad at me, but, please—"

The Other Sonic growled, his illusionary fox tail twitching in irritation as he stopped his struggling just to jab his forefinger into Scourge's chest, his eyes glowing with warning. "Dude! I have no idea WHO. YOU. ARE. So let me go finally!" the Other Sonic shouted, pushing against the green hedgehog's chest.

But Scourge still refused to let go.

"Do you think she's pretending no to know him because she's mad at him or because she doesn't want to be associated with him anymore?" Zector asked his chameleon colleague while both of them were watching the assumed 'lovers quarrel' from afar.

Zespio sighed. His crocodile colleague always took the job of keeping watch on the prisoners like watching some kind of TV show, always speculating about the intentions of the characters (aka prisoners). But Zespio couldn't blame him; sometimes the jail really looked like some crazy soap opera.

For example at this very moment.

"Both. She had to put up with a lot of abuse from the other prisoners because of him," Zespio answered, deciding to engage in a little conversation as he was bored too.

"—Ouch! That must have hurt!" Zector exclaimed as the Other Sonic head-butted his captor, the action finally getting Scourge to let go of him. "Do you think we should step in?"

"Not until a blood is spilled," the chameleon responded. It was pointless to try to stop every single fight in the Zone Jail as there were dozens of them in a single day. And most of the time it usually took just three punches to settle whatever disagreement the prisoners had.

"Fiona,  _ please— _ !"

"No! Stay away from me!" the Other Sonic shouted, jumping to the side to avoid getting caught by the green criminal again.

Unfortunately for him, Scourge lunged in the same direction, getting a hold of his masked alter-ego's wrist. "Not until you forgive me!"

"Get your hands OFF ME!" the Other Sonic growled, raising his knee sharply up, successfully hitting Scourge in the stomach with it, which, unfortunately for Scourge, was right under the broken rib which he had acquired during his arrest—and because of which he had spent his first week in the jail's infirmary.

"Are you sure?" Zector asked as he listened to Scourge wailing like a hurt animal. Strangely, the green criminal's grip on the Other Sonic's wrist was still like an iron, the masked hero now desperately trying to pry off the criminal's hand that just refused to let go of him. But when that proved to be an impossible task for the Other Sonic, the masked hero just changed a tactic. He roughly _bit_ into Scourge's forearm.

The unexpected action, indeed, made the green criminal let go of him with a scream; however, it also made Scourge's instincts to kick in, one of Scourge's legs shooting up and hitting the Other Sonic's skull without the green criminal meaning to do so.

The Other Sonic staggered backwards, stopping only when his back hit the wall. The masked hero immediately pressed himself flush against the wall as his vision was swimming horribly and he felt too unsteady to walk on his own. However, Scourge didn't have this problem. No. The green criminal was slowly approaching him, clutching his bleeding arm, his face twisted in an angry scowl—

"Now?"

"Now."

And then both reptile zone cops jumped down to end the fight before the assumed 'lovers' could kill each other.

~O~

"Hey, Zonic, I heard you wanted to speak with—" Sonic started as he entered the zone cop's office, stopping mid-sentence when he noticed his alter-ego's expression. "Is something wrong?"

Zonic raised his green eyes from the screen that was before him, a deep frown on his face. "You said you were from the same world as the injured Shadow, correct?"

"Yeah." Sonic replied, unsure why was Zonic bringing this up now. "Why are you asking?"

The head zone cop stood up, turning around the screen for Sonic to take a look. "Because based on what I have here that is not true."

"What?" Sonic asked in confusion and then looked at the data on the screen—which however made no sense to him. "I don't know what this is."

"These are your home-world's coordinates. I obtained them from the blood-sample that you provided a week ago—" Sonic vaguely remembered Zonic saying something about their home-world's address being encoded in their DNA. "—But your and Shadow's do not match. However—"

"Wait a moment! That has to be some kind of mistake—" Sonic jumped into Zonic's speech, only to get cut off by the head zone cop himself.

"I ran the test twice, Sonic."

"...But what world would I be from if not from Shadow's?" Sonic asked, a sense of foreboding settling in the pit of his stomach.

"The world of the second Shadow and Knuckles that you came here with," Zonic answered matter-of-factly; just like if the two of them had been speaking about the weather.

The blue hero stared at his double for a moment, trying to process what was just told to him. "Okay, let's say I am from their world... How could I even get into another world without noticing it?"

"There are various ways. Haven't you been in an unusual accident lately? Something involving chaos techniques possibly?" Zonic suggested, as those were the most usual ones; the zone police already had to help numerous people that had gotten themselves stuck in various dimensions—though mostly accidentally as Dr. Nega's gem theft had made the multiverse destabilized.

(However, now when they had all the gems back, the balance would soon be restored and, hopefully, the number of accidents would fall back to minimum as before.)

The memory of escaping from Dr. Eggman's death-trap per Chaos Control flashed through Sonic's mind, right after followed by the memory of his conversation with Knuckles.

** _"So, your world's Sonic has been missing for two months now?"_ **

** _"Yes, he went to destroy Doctor Eggman's base and hasn't been seen since."_ **

And at that moment _everything_ clicked together.


	31. A Broken Man

_ "So...!" _

_ "...onic!" _

"Sonic!"

"Huh?" Sonic snapped out of his trance like state, staring at his alter-ego who was currently looking at him with a deeply worried expression on his face.

However, it disappeared just a moment later, Zonic letting out a breath of relief at finally receiving an answer. "Good, you've snapped out of it."

"What just happened...?" Sonic asked as the other hedgehog helped him up, Sonic not even recalling sinking to the floor. The blue hero could feel as he was tugged to Zonic's chair where he then let himself be unceremoniously dropped as his legs felt too weak to hold him at the moment.

"You've been in shock for last few minutes," Zonic explained, sighing. "I apologize for breaking the news to you in such an outright way—I would have used a different approach if I knew it would surprise you this much."

Sonic looked up to stare at his doppelgänger, his lips moving on their own accord as his mind was still too busy dealing with the inner turmoil of emotions that he was experiencing. "I don't think any amount of sugar-coating would help me digest this information..."

"Water?" Zonic asked, handing him a glass of the mentioned fluid. Sonic accepted it eagerly as his throat suddenly felt extremely dry.

"Thanks."

"I know it is not my place to ask but...Is there a _particular_ reason for your reaction?" Zonic asked, an inquiring expression on his face.

To be honest, Sonic wasn't really surprised by his doppelgänger's question. After all, they were the **_same_** person. Well, with a little difference there and there but in the core they were identical—of course his breakdown over something like this must have seemed really strange to Zonic.

"...It's a long and _complicated_ story," Sonic answered in the end, clutching the now-empty glass tightly.

Zonic looked at him for a long while but in the end... "...I understand," was all that Zonic said, obviously sensing that he didn't wish to speak about this and thus not pressing further—for which was Sonic deeply grateful.

A silence settled over them. However, it was short-lived as Zonic spoke up again just a minute later.

"...The Knuckles and Shadow of your world are being send home in an hour."

"...I see," Sonic acknowledged, not really sure what else he should say.

Zonic sighed and then took deep breath—just as if he was about to deliver another bad news. "I'll have to ask you to go with them."

Sonic's hold on the glass tightened even more. "What?! But I can't! Shadow—" _The_ ** _ **Other**_** _Shadow_ , his mind corrected him quietly, but Sonic responded with a remark of his own, _The Shadow that cares about me_ _,_ "—is still injured! I can't leave him here."

_ He cares about you only because he thinks you're someone else,  _ the little voice sounded again, its words rendering Sonic speechless.

_ **...because he thinks you're someone else...** _

Sonic squeezed the glass with a such force that it shattered in his hold, the shards slicing his palm. But the hero didn't even notice it.

His heart felt like it was being  _ torn in two  _ inside his chest; a minor slice felt like _nothing_ compared to it.

A flash of surprise flashed across the head zone cop's face as he did not expect his dimensional counterpart to break the glass, but Zonic recomposed himself quickly. "You'll have to. The multiverse is critically destabilized. In order to get it back into a stable state once again we need to return as many people and gems back to their world of origin—your presence here would cause more harm than good."

There was no response at Sonic's part.

Peach lips pressed into a frown. "...If you want to I can postpone the time of your departure for one more hour—but not more," Zonic offered, his tone alone clearly saying he wasn't going to change his mind about this. And Sonic himself definitely wasn't in the mood to argue about it.

"...That would be... _ great _ ." Sonic said, making such a fake smile that there was no way Zonic wouldn't see its falseness. However, his doppelgänger did not comment it.

"Well then, you shall be transported home in two hours from now. However, before I'll go arrange that—somebody needs to take a look at your hand. Please, follow me."

Sonic did not say anything, he only stood up and followed the zone cop out of the room, his body on auto-pilot as his mind was too focused on dealing with the storm of emotions that was currently trying to tear his heart to shreds.

~O~

Zonic led Sonic to the jail infirmary, which was usually meant only for the prisoners because the zone cops had their own infirmary as nobody wanted to risk the inevitable attacks of prisoners on the officers that definitely would take place if the two parties were in the same area.

(But the qualifications of the doctors in both sectors was the same and this one was closer, so why don't use the chance, right?)

Sonic looked around the infirmary, more out of habit than out of curiosity as he couldn't really bring himself to care even a little about what the room looked like, the hollow feeling inside his chest the only thing that mattered at the moment.

And because of this he almost didn't notice that on one of the twenty beds that were in the room was sitting a female fox prisoner—as he assumed from her orange uniform—who was chained to the bed frame, seemingly lost deep in thought herself. She only had a few, clearly new, stitches on her head and she didn't seem ill so Sonic guessed she was just waiting for being taken back to her cell.

"I'll go tell Dr. Zuack you are waiting for him here," Zonic announced before departing to find the aforementioned doctor—and thus leaving Sonic with the unknown prisoner alone.

The blue hero sat down on one of the empty beds, his eyes being drawn to stare at the fox beside him by unknown force, Sonic not even realizing he had spoken before the words were already out of his mouth.

"Hi, there."

The fox snapped out of her musings and then turned to look at him, her blue eyes widening in recognition. However, no other emotions could be visible on her face. "...Hi."

Sonic's mouth moved again, purely on its own accord, the blue hero not sure why he was even trying to strike a conversation with the stranger when all he wanted to do at the moment was to find some dark corner where he could cry until he had no more tears left. "So, uh, yeah, hi, again. I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. And you?"

The girl's blank expression morphed to a strange faraway that lasted for couple of heartbeats before a sad smile found its way to her lips.

She shook her head. "If I told you, you wouldn't believe me."

Sonic laughed—an amused but at the same time sorrowful laugh. "Believe me, so much crazy stuff has happened in the last fifteen minutes that I think anything is possible at the moment."

"How crazy?"

"Turning-life-upside-down crazy," Sonic answered, suddenly feeling strangely at ease despite the negative emotions that he still could feel boiling inside him.

The fox chuckled and then smiled, her eyes shining with a such understanding that made Sonic sure that she herself had experienced something similar recently. "Life can be really unpredictable sometimes. One moment you are as happy as you can possibly be and the next..." Her smile fell, her eyes moistening ever so slightly. "...you are rotting in a filthy cell for crimes of someone else."

The blue hero furrowed his eye-ridges, both in confusion and curiosity. "Crimes of someone else?"

The fox nodded, the sad smile finding its way to her face once again. "I'm not who I appear to be but...nobody will listen to me."

"And who are you then?" Sonic asked, his own negative feelings getting pushed aside so curiosity could fully take their place.

The fox opened her mouth to speak and—

"Hi there, Sonic! Didn't expect to bump into you here!"

"Oh, hey, Zector. How's work going?" Sonic asked, bumping fists with the crocodile cop that just entered the infirmary—another habit, this one a relatively new one; they had chatted on multiple occasions as Zector was the one to explain him how everything worked around the No Zone. Though, to be honest, Sonic still felt a little uneasy anytime he saw somebody walking on the walls due to the dual gravity that was working around here.

He himself had been given a spatial stabilizer, which allowed him to choose on which horizon he wished to walk, and so he chose the horizon natural to No Zone as the No Zone Police facility was build in a way to be comfortable for the natives of the No Zone and not the visitors.

"Smoothly. Well, except few fights here and there. Like with Fiona here. She got into a fight with Scourge." Zector gestured to the fox that was just silently listening to their conversation.

"Whoa! Really? What did he do?" he asked, his interested tone actually genuine at that moment.

"...He couldn't keep his hands to himself," the fox answered; but Sonic could sense there was something behind these words.

"Yeah, both of them are getting few days in a solitary confinement for this. I'm actually about to take her there right now..." Zector trailed off as he focused his attention onto the fox's chains.

"Another few days in solitary confinement..." The fox snorted as Zector was working on unchaining her from the bed. "G _ reat _ ."

For some reason, the way the female had said 'great' reminded Sonic of himself greatly.

"Well, then—See ya later!" Zector said, dragging the fox along.

But just as they were about to leave the infirmary, the fox turned around. "By the way, the answer to your question is—"

A name left the fox's lips, surprising Sonic greatly.

It was his own name.

~O~

When Sonic finally got over his shock, the two have already been long gone. He had wanted to run after the two to ask the fox what she had meant, but before he could have even stood up, Dr. Zuack, who had just entered the room, had already been giving him the 'Where do you think you are going?' look, the doctor carrying such an intimidating aura that Sonic didn't even dare to move before the doctor told him he was free to leave.

Sonic then tried to find where exactly the solitary confinement cells were to speak with the fox, but two grumpy zone cops that were guarding the sector refused to let him in. Of course, he could have asked Zonic for permission to enter the sector, but he honestly had no idea where the head zone cop was and he had already lost enough time with getting his hand treated and searching for the solitary confinements and he still needed to talk with the Other Shadow.

...Thought that probably wasn't a good excuse when he had spend last five minutes with just standing before the door leading to the dark hedgehog's room, was it?

That was also the reason why he was completely caught of guard when the Other Shadow's voice unexpectedly sounded from the other side of the door, "Come in, Sonic. I know you're there."

The blue hero hesitantly opened the door, peeking inside, which received him a strange look from the Other Shadow, his world's Shadow nowhere to be seen any longer.

"Hi, Shads. There is..." Sonic entered the room fully, immediately looking to the ground. "...something I need to tell you..."

The dark agent's eye-ridges furrowed as he watched the blue hero—his downcast eyes, the way his ears were bent, how he nervously nervously played with the gloves on his hands...

The Other Shadow frowned; it was obvious that whatever Sonic planned to tell him was not going to be pleasant. "Go ahead."

"Well, the thing is...ugh..." Sonic tried to find the correct words but his tongue felt like if it was knotted and his mind, which was blank at the moment, wasn't helping either. Or maybe there just wasn't a good way how to say: 'There was a misunderstanding. I'm actually not your lover, but just his alter-ego which got into your world by pure accident but didn't notice they were in a wrong world until now. Life is funny, don't ya think?'

However, he didn't even got the chance to start the sure-to-be-horrible explanation as at that very moment the door burst open.

"Is it true?!"

Both hedgehogs looked in alarm to the door, the feeling morphing into a slight surprise in the Other Shadow's case and utter horror in Sonic's when he saw it was none other than Knuckles.

Sonic did not waste even a moment, he grabbed the echidna by his upper arm, uttering only short "Excuse us for a moment!" before dragging the guardian out of the room, swiftly closing the door once they were in the corridor.

"What is supposed to be true?" Sonic asked—despite the fact that he had an idea what was Knuckles speaking about.

"That you are from our world—that you are our Sonic," the guardian answered immediately, making the little voice in Sonic's head go 'Bingo! You win another complication!'

Sonic sighed. "...Yeah, it is."

He then received a fast hug that in anyone else's case would surely be a bone-crushing, but Sonic was already too used to these because of Amy—so he only had to bear with the feeling of life being squeezed out of him.

The echidna pulled away from him, his usual gruff expression replaced with a tiny smile. "You know—everybody missed you! A lot! We should go tell Zonic that he can—" Knuckles got hold of his arm, but Sonic immediately yanked it back as he knew what the echidna wished to do even without him having to finish his sentence.

"I can't go yet!"

"What?" Knuckles looked confused. "But Sonic everybody is waiting for you—"

"I know! But there is still something I need to do, Knuckles." Sonic took a fast glance at the door behind him, Knuckles immediately understanding that this 'something' was somehow connected to Shadow's double.

"Come on! That guy is _Shadow_! I am sure he'll be alright if we leave him here."

_ I don't think so,  _ Sonic thought in his mind; but in the real word he said something else completely. "I know. But I still have to explain the situation to him, you know?"

Knuckles frowned. "I'm sure Zonic can do that himself—"

"Yeah, thanks, Knux! You're the best!" Sonic said, not listening to the guardian's words at all. "I'll meet you in cafeteria once I am done!" And the he disappeared behind before Knuckles could even blink.

However, the scene definitely wasn't the same as Sonic had left it.

The Other Shadow was now leaning against the headboard, covering his eyes with his left hand, his lips curled in what seemed to be a tiny smirk—but Sonic could sense that there was something deeply wrong about the entire scene as the air in the room suddenly felt way too heavy .

Sonic walked over to the Other Shadow's bed and then sat back down on the chair that he had previously occupied, his voice not coming out as strong as he would have liked. "Shadow, is something wrong...?"

The dark hedgehog snorted, but did not take the hand away from his eyes; and thus successfully hiding them from Sonic's sight. "Something wrong? No..."

And then, unexpectedly, a tear rolled from under the Other Shadow's hand. "But everything? Yes.  _ Definitely _ ..."

The blue hero stared in mild confusion at the random tear, not understanding why the Other Shadow was crying out of nowhere.

But then it clicked.

_ He must have heard us over the door... _

"Shadow, I—"

"Just go home, Sonic."

"Shadow, let me—"

"Go home, _faker_ ," the Other Shadow hissed, finally taking the hand off his eyes, revealing them to the world again.

Those red agony-filled eyes...

Sonic's ears flattened against his head instinctively; it was a long time since the ebony hedgehog had used such a hostile tone with him. "Shadow,  _ please _ ..."

"Go. _Home_ ," the Other Shadow repeated, his stare changing to a hard glare, the dark hedgehog clearly not wanting him to be around him anymore. Sonic could feel a sharp stab of pain in his heart at this realization.

"I...I—" The Other Shadow's eyes turned to slits in warning. Sonic sighed in defeat. "...alright."

And so Sonic left the room, no other words exchanged between the two of them.

~O~

"Why the long face?"

Sonic looked up from the table, in which he had been glaring holes for the last five minutes, to the speaker, his green eyes meeting the purple ones of Knuckles. "I don't want to talk about it."

The guardian gave him a long thoughtful look before sitting down across him. "Don't let whatever what the Other Shadow has said get to you—it's not true," Knuckles said, taking a sip of a soda that he had brought with himself.

_ It's not about what he said, it's  _ _ **how** _ _ he said it...  _ Sonic commented internally, sighing. "It's a bit more complicated, Knuckles."

"Well, whatever it is, it's not like you will have to see him again. So don't worry about it."

_...see him again...see him again...see him again... _

Sonic frowned as the three little words began to play again and again in his mind like a broken record, for some strange reason making him feel as if the were somehow important out of sudden.

And then the memory how he was unable to look at Shadow without breaking into tears after he saw the Other Shadow 'die' just a week ago.

** _"Go home,_ ** ** _**faker** _ ** ** _."_ **

_...see him again... _

Sonic abruptly stood up, slamming his hands onto the table, the pain that it caused to his injured hand left unnoticed as he announced, "I need to talk with Shadow!"

And he was gone before Knuckles could even say anything.

~O~

"Shadow?" Sonic opened the door, expecting to find still rather angry Other Shadow. However, the bed where the dark hedgehog was supposed to be was devoid of his presence—just like the rest of the room.

Sonic closed the door to the Other Shadow's room, immediately walking over to the nearest person who seemed to be a part of the medical staff. This person happened to be a young female rabbit that awfully reminded him of Cream despite the fact that she seemed to be at least ten years older.

"Excuse me, madam, but where is the dark hedgehog that is supposed to occupy this room?" Sonic gestured to the room in question with his hand.

The female looked to the room, a surprise crossing her face. "Wait...you mean he's not there? But he was there five minutes ago when I checked on him! Thought he had asked me a really weird question—something about where the extremely dangerous prisoners are being held..."

Suddenly, Sonic had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

~O~

Dr. Nega looked up from the book in his hold, his eyes falling on the unexpected visitor that had just walked through the door of his cell.

The male had obviously forced his way through if the unconscious bodies of the guards lying on the ground behind him were anything to go by.

Dr. Nega could feel a chill of fear go down his spine upon seeing the male's expression; however, he didn't let it show. "Oh, my! What have I done to be honored by your presence?"

The male, none other than the Other Shadow, glared at him. "Where is the Sonic of my world?"

"Might I ask, what gives you the idea that I know such an information?" Dr. Nega asked, raising his non-existent eyebrow in question.

"Because he disappeared at the same time that his evil look-alike, who evidently works for  _ you _ , appeared," the Other Shadow hissed. "So stop pretending you don't know and answer my question."

"Tsk, tsk," the doctor raised his forefinger, waving it slightly in a way one would do right before they start lecturing somebody. "Nobody taught you how these things work? It's always something for something. So, what do you say about—"

Without warning the Other Shadow appeared before him and roughly gripped the collar of Dr. Nega's prison uniform, forcing the much bigger male to bow down with no real visible effort, the action reminding the doctor that the person before him was _not_ someone whom he could take lightly.

Shadow's eyes were wide open, the fixated gaze making Dr. Nega feel like if the hedgehog was staring right into his soul, the crimson eyes searching for the tiniest hint of fear—and they found it right after the following sentence was uttered.

"Who said _you_ are the one setting the conditions here?"


	32. Complicated

** _"Everyone can choose how much time they want to spend in this world."_ **

Shadow frowned as this declaration of his double kept replaying in his head over and over again like a broken record. The whole idea was **_crazy_** but at the same time so...intriguing.

Shadow found himself liking this plan of his alter-ego more and more with each passed minute—it was so _simple_ that he was astonished that he had never thought of this possibility before. What was different about his alter-ego that it made him come up with this solution?

** _"Love is not rational."_ **

Shadow snorted in amusement, realizing how cliché the answer was.

It was love. Of course.

For Sonic.

His double had admitted that he had feelings for the blue hero and from what Shadow had seen so far—the feelings seemed to be reciprocated. However, Shadow was still unsure if there was actually a romantic relationship between the two. The Other Shadow had talked like if there was, but the blue hero wasn't really acting in a way one would expect—Sonic was a very affectionate person and loved to show his affection to the people he liked—but Shadow hadn't really seen this version of blue hero do any gesture that would suggest anything more than a good friendship between him and his alter ego.

Whatever was the real case, there was no doubt that this Sonic was making his double happy—it took just a simply 'there is someone I like' from this Sonic to make his double smile.

It wasn't an earth-shattering like 'I love you', but even such a little comment could be powerful when it comes from the right person—a person who means a lot you.

_ "Because falling for faker is definitely not something that could happen to any version of me in their right state of mind." _

Shadow snorted as his own words came back to him. It was really hard to believe that his double managed to fall for the blue hero—that he himself wasn't the only one to meet this fate.

It was laughable.

The truth was that he had fallen for Sonic. _Hard._ He couldn't really remember when as he had been refusing to acknowledge the fact that he actually might not dislike Sonic as much as he had claimed for a long time. At that time he didn't want to be in love—love meant caring about someone, someone he was inevitably going to lose one day because of his immortality. And so he kept telling himself that he hated Sonic—that Sonic was an annoying nuisance that never knew when to shut up, had no respect for personal space, nor enough decency to keep his muzzle out of other's people private matters when they told him to go away.

But his hate was a lie. To himself. To Sonic. To _everybody_.

He had hoped that if he repeated 'I hate Sonic' enough times and if he acted that way it might become true...

That was actually the whole point of confronting his alter-ego—he wanted a confirmation from the Other him, from  _ himself _ _ ,  _ that he was right—that letting himself love anyone was a bad idea.

But the Other Shadow had definitely caught him of guard.

Before all of this whole inter-dimensional mess Shadow was one-hundred percent sure that loving Sonic was a bad idea, but now...

Now he wasn't so sure.

~O~

Sonic usually didn't swear, but he had feeling this was a special situation and that he could for once change this habit.

_ Crap!Crap!Crap! _ _ he  _ thought as he raced in the direction the rabbit female had pointed him in—he had to get there before the Other Shadow could do something harsh.

But based on the three unconscious guards on the floor he was already too late for that.

The blue hero entered the poorly lit sector, making sure not to step on the unconscious bodies that littered the floor—or at least he believed them to be as there was no blood anywhere. He stepped into the corridor which diverged into three other directions, the blue hero unsure which way he should go. He strained his ears for any sounds, hoping it could point him in the right direction.

A sound of something heavy hitting the floor reached his ears soon after.

His head whipped towards his left from which the sound had sounded, the blue hero not hesitating even for a moment and immediately racing that way as he couldn't afford to waste any more time; there still might be the chance to stop the dark agent from doing whatever he planned to do.

~O~

"You know, I think you just broke a record. I'm pretty sure nobody was ever sentenced to solitary confinement forty-six times."

"So I'm a record-breaker, huh?" was all that the Other Sonic said as he kept walking alongside Zector, not really interested in striking a conversation with the cop.

And that was saying something when it comes to Sonic the Hedgehog who used  _ every  _ single opportunity to talk that was presented to him.

But the Other Sonic needed to think over his recent encounter with his alternative self. From all his alter-egos that he had met so far this one seemed the most similar to him—he looked and acted the same way he would—or at least the same way he would before this whole prison thing happened. The Other Sonic was aware that his stay in the jail had affected him negatively; he used to be positive about everything, full of energy and never-giving up no matter how impossible the situation might look.

But now none of these things were true anymore.

He often found himself expecting the worst, he felt exhausted all the time and he found himself often thinking that maybe he should give up—after all, all of his 38 attempts on escaping were unsuccessful—he clearly didn't have what it took to escape this hell-hole.

But still there was the tiniest bit of hope that kept him going—the possibility that some miracle could happen that would finally get him out of here. The truth was that one side of him believed that this new alter-ego of his could be this miracle, because maybe this Sonic would actually believe his word and tell someone that wouldn't immediately discard this as a crazy babbling.

However, there was also another side which kept insisting that he was hoping in vain.

The Other Sonic sighed, deciding not to think about it for now—it was up to his alter-ego what he would do with the information. The masked hero raised his gaze to take a look around—maybe he could spot something that would inspire him with a next escape plan.

Suddenly, green eyes, hidden under their illusionary blue counterparts, locked onto a too familiar looking person.

_...Shadow,  _ the Other Sonic breathed internally, his eyes trained on the male hedgehog, who was one floor above them, resting against a safety railing that kept him from falling onto the lower ground where he and Zector were at the moment.

The masked hero could feel a smile making its way to his face, a warm feeling settling in his chest.  _ Shadow's here! _

_ Definitely not your Shadow!  _ the little voice, which was always at the back of his mind, decided to make an appearance again, brutally crushing the hope that had flared inside the masked hero.

The Other Sonic's smile froze on his face when he realized that the voice was right—the chances of it being his Shadow were bazillion to none. It was most likely just another zone cop—he hadn't really seen Shadow's zone cop alter-ego yet, so he couldn't be sure if it actually wasn't that one.

"Fiona, we don't have all day!"

The masked hero sharply turned to Zector, the zone cop impatiently tapping his foot.

"I'm coming," the Other Sonic said, his smile disappearing completely as he once again fell into step beside Zector—and thus missed the red eyes that were watching him from above.

~O~

"Where. Is. He?!" The Other Shadow raised his blood-covered fist high, prepared to continue his session of beating the daylights out of the man before him if he wouldn't be given the answer he sought.

Dr. Nega's face was already unrecognizable and bloodied, the man undoubtedly in horrible pain, but somehow, despite the excruciating pain he had to feel in his face, the doctor still managed to sneer. "You're  ** _never_ ** going to find him."

The dark hedgehog brought his fist down, effectively knocking out another tooth out of the scientist's mouth, the streaked body now trembling in rage.

Dr. Nega could feel how the striped hand, which had been previously holding him by the collar of his uniform, suddenly moved right on his throat, choking him, the doctor immediately gasping for breath.

The Other Shadow growled as he raised his fist once more, planning to release his wrath on the scientist before him. "You—!"

" _ Stop! _ "

Crimson eyes went wide when their owner's forearm was suddenly tightly gripped by Sonic—who definitely hadn't been there just a second ago—the hero's gloved hand on his forearm preventing him from smashing Dr. Nega's face in.

The Other Shadow growled, "What the hell do you think you're doing, hedgehog?"

"Stopping you before you might do something you'll regret," Sonic answered, his face not betraying any emotion.

The Other Shadow snorted. "I only regret not killing him the first time I had the chance." After saying this, the dark agent attempted to yank his arm free, but the blue hero immediately tightened his hold on the striped arm, refusing to let the dark hedgehog continue this madness—which was a hard task as Shadow was still pretty darn strong despite his weakened state. If the Other Shadow wasn't still injured Sonic was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to stop him.

"Stop this, Shadow! You won't solve anything by killing him!"

The Other Shadow send him a glare. "I'm just using all means necessary to make him speak."

"Don't you think he would have already told you if he knew?" the blue hero asked, their eyes locking for a moment—thus giving Sonic the chance to catch the glimpse of the despair hidden in the Other Shadow's eyes beneath all the anger the dark agent felt at the moment.

The other Shadow's glare intensified. "He  _ knows  _ but he refuses to tell me—and in a such case it doesn't matter to me if he's alive or dead."

"You won't get your Sonic back by murdering this man," Sonic stated, taking the wind out of the Other Shadow's sails with the statement. "I understand that you are angry at him for not wanting to tell you where your Sonic is, but, please, don't kill him..." Sonic said, contemplating for a moment if the thing that he was about to say was a good idea, but then decided that it was probably the only way how to make the Other Shadow listen.

"...Do you think that your Sonic would be happy to know you had killed a man just to find him? Because from my point of view I can give you a clear answer—I wouldn't be."

Crimson eyes continued to glare daggers into him, but after few more seconds they softened—the dark hedgehog probably admitting to himself that Sonic's words were true. He slowly released his hold on the doctor's neck, Dr. Nega immediately slumping to the ground, gasping for air.

Sonic gave the hedgehog before him a tiny smile, letting go of the Other Shadow's forearm, the striped limb falling to a side of the dark hedgehog, who had diverted his eyes and now seemed to be looking at some faraway point of the cell. However, to Sonic it was clear he was just trying to avoid his gaze.

The blue hero took a glimpse at the doctor who was kneeling on the floor; he looked bad but he surely could bear few more minutes without medical help.

Sonic focused his attention back to the Other Shadow, who was now running his hand through his quills—the same way human would run their hand through their hair when stressed by something. It was clear that the Other Shadow was in a need of comfort—and so the blue hero made a step forward and then embraced the other hedgehog, surprising the dark agent greatly—mostly about the fact that Sonic was willing to touch him despite the fact that he was covered in blood.

Sonic's next words were quiet but he knew the Other Shadow's great hearing would have no problem to pick them up. "We'll find him. I promise."

The Other Shadow did not say anything nor he made any move, the hero wondering if the dark agent was going to push him away. But then there were suddenly arms embracing him, pressing him to their owner in a hold that felt like one of a drowning man.

And so Sonic tightened his hold a bit more.

" _ I promise _ ."

~O~

"What's up with all you hedgehogs looking so down today?"

Shadow frowned as he turned to the newcomer. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well, first Sonic—now you. It leaves me to wonder why neither of you is happy about the outcome of things..." the newcomer, who was actually Knuckles, answered, sipping the soda which he hadn't finished yet.

"Outcome of things? You mean the fact that the imposter was finally caught?" Shadow asked, unaware that the person which he had seen walk past just few minutes ago wasn't actually the imposter despite the fact that the two looked identical.

Knuckles raised an eye-ridge. "The imposter was caught? Zonic didn't say anything about that when he came to share with me the news about Sonic."

"What news about Sonic?"

Knuckles gave the dark agent a confused look. "Wait, Zonic hasn't told you?"

"I haven't talked to anybody in the last half an hour," Shadow said—even thought he was pretty sure it was longer; though he wasn't sure how long exactly had he been standing at this safety railing thinking about his _problem_ as there were no clock around for him to look up the time.

"It came to light that the Sonic who had arrived with us here is actually the Sonic of our world," Knuckles explained casually.

Shadow sharply turned his eyes back to the echidna, expecting Knuckles to say he was joking in the next few seconds.

But that didn't happen.

The guardian mistook Shadow's staring for incredulity and so he continued with the explanation, "Zonic said that he's checked the world coordinates of Sonic and they match with ours. And that Sonic didn't even realize he was in a wrong world as our worlds are almost identical—which he said is because we used to be one world until a year ago."

Shadow didn't respond anyhow to these news as his brain was too busy with drawing conclusions what this information meant for him. And after that happened, he covered his eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh, only one thought running through his head.

_ Why does everything has to be so freaking complicated when it comes to Sonic? _


	33. Surprises

Sonic knew he could be intimidating when he wanted to, but he rarely choose to do so. However, he never knew how scary he actually looked during these moments until now.

(Well, that's probably one of the perks of meeting your alter-ego—you learn something about yourself every day.)

Zonic's glare intensified even more at his double's silence. "I said I wanted an explanation. And I want it  _ now _ ."

What exactly was Sonic supposed to explain? Just things like what the hell he and the Other Shadow were doing in Dr. Nega's cell, why the doctor looked like if had been beaten repeatedly, why both of them were covered in blood when the zone cops found them—you know, the _important_ stuff...

The blue hero gulped heavily, wondering if the Other Shadow was also undergoing an interrogation. Or maybe he was still sleeping. After all, he had gotten shot with four pacifying bullets before he went down.

Sonic unconsciously rubbed his shoulder, in which he himself earned a shot with a pacifying bullet—which was basically a projectile full of some kind of sedative, obviously meant to be used on prisoners in case of riot. He himself had to be shot only once to fall asleep.  _ And I thought that GUN was the only organization with shoot first, ask questions later attitude... _

"Well?" the head zone cop asked, tapping his foot—Sonic knew himself good enough to know Zonic was getting _very_ impatient.

However, Sonic honestly wasn't sure how to explain the incident without revealing what kind of relationship was between the Other Shadow and his Sonic—if it was only Zonic, Sonic would have probably told the truth—but because Knuckles and Shadow were in the room too, he didn't really want to reveal this fact as he was sure it would bring him a lot of trouble.

In Knuckles' case, it would be either never-ending mocking or jumping into a conclusion that he had to be gay too—well, he was a gay, but that was beside the point—and that he might be secretly after his red butt; Knuckles immediately assumed this anytime he met a gay person—it was really hilarious to see him trying to avoid all physical contact with said person.

And in Shadow's case, he expected mocking as well—thought it would probably be much worse, and there was also a risk of a more  _ violent  _ reaction.

"Well, there's pretty long and complicated story behind this—"

"—Then shorten it," Zonic cut into his doppelgänger's speech, hissing.

Sonic rubbed his neck nervously, gulping. "—Okay, so...the thing is that-the actual Sonic of Shadow's world has went missing four months ago. And about the same time the imposter appeared, but Shadow could immediately tell he was not the true Sonic—However, when I appeared Shadow thought I was the real Sonic. And when he heard that I am from another world—his nerves kinda snapped and so he went berserk on Nega, who he presumed knew where the real Sonic of his world is, because of the whole imposter working for him thingy!" Sonic finished, hoping Zonic wouldn't inquire for the reason why the Other Shadow would snap when hearing his rival was still missing.

"I don't get it." But, hey, why would Zonic needed to prod when Knuckles would do that for him, right? "Why did the Other Shadow get angry over your alter-ego missing? Last time I checked you two weren't really getting along," the guardian said, presuming their complicated relationship was present in the Other world too as their worlds were almost identical.

_ You just have to make my life harder, don't you, Knuckles? _

Zonic turned to his double, raising an eye-ridge. "That's an excellent question."

Zonic didn't need to even say he wanted an answer to this question, his expression of 'You better answer this if you don't want me to lock you up here forever' explained this to Sonic rather clearly.

"Well, that's because apart from the two of us," Sonic gestured firstly to himself and then to the ebony agent, "The two of them actually get along!"

"They get along?" Zonic frowned, obviously sensing there was something _fishy_ about this answer.

"Yes, they do!" Sonic said, nodding his head repeatedly.

Zonic scowled. "I want the truth, Sonic."

"That's the truth!" the blue hero immediately said defensively. However, Zonic could see right past his alter-ego's acting.

" _Sonic_..."

The blue speedster sighed, knowing Zonic had seen right through his charade. "I...I don't think it's my place to talk about this."

"Sonic, if you don't tell me the real reason for Shadow's violent behavior I can't let him wander around freely—I can't risk him attacking Dr. Nega again," Zonic explained, hoping this would finally make Sonic tell him the truth.

The blue hero sighed as he looked to the ground.  _ Here we go!  _ "Alright...the Other Shadow and his Sonic are..." Sonic took a deep breath before finishing his sentence. "...a couple."

Sonic dared to take a look at the others. Zonic looked slightly surprised. Knuckles looked **_very_** surprised, but strangely Shadow didn't seem surprised at all. And he didn't seem angry or disgusted either. He actually looked indifferent. That, for change, surprised Sonic. _Whoa, that definitely is not an reaction I expected from Shadow..._

"You mean like—?"

"Yes, the romantic kind, Knuckles," Sonic answered the unfinished question, hoping the guardian wouldn't prod into the matter anymore.

However, Knuckles stayed quiet only for a moment before speaking up again. "Shadow really has to be an Ice queen when you haven't even realized you were in a wrong world then..."

The guardian pretended like he didn't feel the burning glare that he received from Shadow for his 'Ice queen' remark.

"I...Well, we thought that I might have some kind of weird amnesia caused by the unusual Chaos Control I had to undergo to save myself from being killed by Egghead..."

"And you just went with it?" Knuckles asked in disbelief.

"Well, yeah, because except for that and a few other things the Other world seemed the same as our..."

"It isn't uncommon to not realize you are in a wrong world. We already had to deal with many cases of this kind," Zonic explained, before turning to Sonic. "Unfortunately, your misplacement somehow went unnoticed by us. Our technicians are already upgrading the System to ensure this wouldn't happen again."

"The System?" Sonic furrowed his eye-ridges in confusion, not really sure what was Zonic speaking about.

"We have a system that analyzes visuals from the individual zones. Anytime it judges there is something extraordinary going on in some zone, it gives us an alert that there is something we should investigate."

Sonic was getting curious now. "What exactly do you mean by 'visuals'?"

Zonic raised an eye-ridge, unsure why his double was so suddenly interested in the topic. "Camera visuals."

"...Then you surely have a record of what happened to the Other me stored somewhere, right?" Sonic asked, getting excited about getting his hands on a possible clue of where was the Other Sonic. Such news would definitely cheer up the Other Shadow.

"Sonic, we don't keep records. There are too many zones to keep records of every single thing that happens in them."

"And don't you—"

"No."

"Or maybe—"

"No."

"What if—"

"No."

"You don't even know what I planned to say!"

"Sonic, I _am_ _you_. Of course, I know what you planned to say—and I am sorry but we don't have such kind of technology," Zonic answered, sighing. "Unfortunately, even we don't have the resources needed to find the Other you."

"I see..." Sonic muttered, his mood plummeting back into the dark negative abyss in which he had been just a few hours ago when Zonic informed him about him being from another world than the Other Shadow.

Zonic sighed, copying his double; he never enjoyed being the carrier of bad news. "Well, I guess we can end this conversation as I now have all the answers I needed. Or do you have anything you wish to ask me before I'll go to discuss with Warden the obvious insufficiency of our security measures?"

Sonic was the only one to spoke up, as there was still one question nagging him. "...When are we being send home?"

"Due to today's incident your departure has been rescheduled to tomorrow," Zonic answered in a business-like manner, Sonic responding only with a nod and a quiet, "Alright."

The head zone cop waited few seconds to ensure there were no other questions, then he turned to leave the room, briefly stopping at the door. "You are free to wander around, Sonic. If you wish to see the Other Shadow just ask the medical staff where he is at the moment."

"Thanks, Zonic."

"You're welcome," Zonic responded; and then finally left the room.

~O~

The Other Shadow sighed as he walked over to the window—which looked like any regular window you would find in a cell—with four steel bars running across it. Plus the guards before the door of his temporary habitation, were giving the whole prison cell-vibes even more. Funny thought, considering he was supposed to be in the hospital wing. Though he couldn't really say anything against these security measures, after all, he had attacked their staff and one of the prisoners...

"Evening, Shads!" Sonic, who had just entered the room, greeted. "Whoa, you're already on your feet? The doctors said you won't be up until a few hours later with all the sedative that's in your blood."

The Other Shadow didn't answer immediately as he was little taken aback that the harsh looking guards outside let anyone in. "...I'm able to withstand great amount of sedatives in my body without it affecting me much. I even have full resistance towards some."

"Whoa, really? I didn't know that," Sonic answered with genuine surprise as he walked over to the dark hedgehog. "You know—Wait a moment...Where on Mobius did all your injuries go? I'm pretty sure you had a wound at your right shoulder when I had last seen you and that was only four hours ago."

The Other Shadow snorted in amusement at the other's confusion. "Enhanced healing, remember?"

Sonic just stared at him for a moment, before laughing. "Damn you and your ultimate healing abilities."

The dark agent sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Stop fooling around, Sonic. What's the real reason for you being here?"

"Geez, Shads, read the atmosphere a little! You just ruined a nice moment..." Sonic rolled his eyes, before turning serious. "I just wanted to tell you that I plan to keep my promise—I won't return to my home until your Sonic is found—thought Zonic will probably try to drag me back to my world—but no worries! Tails will surely find a way how to send me back in that case—"

The Other Shadow laughed, stunning the blue hero into silence with the action. A genuine laugh was something extremely rare from all versions of Shadow. And then the dark hedgehog did another extremely rare thing for Shadows—he smiled, a sincere _happy_ smile. "Thank you."

Sonic blinked in confusion, not really sure what to think of this random remark. "For what are you thanking me? I haven't done anything yet! I think I actually messed up lot of things!"

"You would call helping to capture two inter-dimensional maniacs a mess up?"

"I almost got you killed in the process."

"I almost got _myself_ killed. It was my decision to attack Scourge," the Other Shadow responded, not wanting Sonic feel bad over decision that wasn't his.

"You wouldn't put yourself in danger if you haven't thought I was your Sonic," the blue hero responded, ignoring the sting of pain that the statement brought him. "I haven't really done anything else beside hurting you—Firstly, with the whole not remembering 'our'," Sonic made a quotation marks with his hands, "relationship and then today when I made you realize you have been helping a stranger all this time..."

The Other Shadow snorted in amusement, "And that's exactly what I am thanking you for."

"What?" Sonic asked in utter confusion—as he couldn't understand why would be the other thankful for making him suffer.

"Sonic, I had been living two months with the thought that my lover might be dead in some ditch—" Sonic flinched at the mental image this statement brought him, because, hey, it was technically him who they were speaking about. "—But then you appeared and I was happy because I thought it meant my worries proved to be untrue and even though your strange 'amnesia'," this time it was the dark hedgehog's turn to make quotation marks, "hit me hard, you still made an effort to remember and that gave me hope that things might one day return to how they used to be. And even thought it came to light that you have been a completely different Sonic all this time..."

Their eyes locked and Sonic could see true thankfulness shine in the Other Shadow's crimson ones. "I am deeply grateful that you have been there with me and made me feel better at least for a short time."

Sonic was silent, his mind blank just like a few hours ago when he came to the Other Shadow to tell him about the mix up. He had no idea what he should say because a simple 'You're welcome' definitely wasn't fit for this situation; but his brain refused to come up with something better. "I...I honestly have no idea what to say... You really caught me off guard with this..."

"I managed to make the great Sonic the Hedgehog speechless? That's honestly the most surprising thing that had happened to me today," the dark agent said, exaggerating his surprised tone.

Sonic chuckled as he gave the other a weak punch to shoulder. "Don't try to be funny—that's my job."

The smile left the other's face, the impassive mask slipping into place once more, but the mirth didn't disappear from his red eyes. "And even though I appreciate your offer on helping me find Sonic, I think I'll have to decline it the sake of your world."

"I am sure the rest can—" Sonic began to speak, but the Other Shadow raised a hand, gesturing him to stop.

"You've been gone for two months, Sonic. Although I am sure your friends would be able to protect their world alone for a little longer, I am sure you miss them all and all of them will be delighted to see you again too. And you shouldn't really be putting a _stranger_ before your friends."

Sonic's lips pressed into a thin line. It was true that theoretically they were strangers to each other; they might look like the people they knew, but before this whole complicated dimensional-jumping they hadn't really met. And for all this time, they both had been living in the illusion that they were someone else—someone they knew.

However, Sonic had different opinion about this. "Well, technically we aren't really strangers, we used to know each other—our worlds used to be one until the Holoska incident, after all! It's just like if we haven't seen each other for a year—" Sonic explained excitedly, his tone changing just a moment later, "—and you've been dating my lost twin in the meantime or something..."

The Other Shadow snorted in mild amusement. "Well, that's another way to look at it..."

Sonic grinned, satisfied that he made the Other Shadow agree with him. "Which means that you are not a stranger but a friend to me and that means that it's perfectly fine for me to help you—"

And this remark caused the start of long pointless bickering on this and other matters that weren't really held with the intention of coming to a conclusion, both parties just wishing to be in each other's company and pretend that today hadn't happened and that they still had no idea that the person sitting across them was not the one they believed them to be—the make-believe soothing both aching hearts.

And it wasn't until hours later that they parted with their final 'Good-night's, not knowing what awaited them the next day.

~O~

Shadow rolled over in his temporary bed, hoping that changing position would help him fall asleep and finally silence the thoughts which were still running wildly through his mind. However, even after a few more rolls he still couldn't find a comfortable position and the thoughts in his head were still buzzing relentlessly.

The dark hedgehog sighed as he rolled onto his back, fixating his gaze on the plain ceiling of the sleeping quarters above him as he silently went over the problem that wouldn't let him sleep—the problem which had been bothering him since the conversation with the Other Shadow.

The name of this problem was 'Sonic'—a blue hedgehog that was making his life way too complicated lately.

Well, with a little help from the Other Shadow as without his double firstly implanting the idea of 'the short and happy life' into his head, he wouldn't even start to doubt his belief that loving Sonic was a bad idea.

Which it obviously was given the circumstances.

What were those circumstances, you might ask...

The fact that Sonic was apparently in love with his alter-ego.

Which, however, shouldn't be a problem because he and his alter-ego were essentially the same person, right?

Wrong.

You see—Yes, they might essentially be the same person but in reality they were two separated entities.

Sonic loved him but at the same time he didn't.

Shadow honestly wanted to punch someone for being put into this horrible predicament. Probably Doctor Eggman, because he was the one that forced Sonic to use a hazardous Chaos Control that luckily only landed him in another world. Though Shadow wasn't particularly happy that it had been a world where his alter-ego acted nice to Sonic.

Because it was the _nice_ Shadow for which Sonic had fallen, after all—a side that Sonic had never had the chance to see before as Shadow had made sure it would never see light of the world again as he'd wanted everyone to think he was a complete jerk so nobody would want to befriend him.

—Which, however, he didn't wish for anymore.

No, he wished for the exact opposite...and more. But that wasn't possible at the moment because Sonic loved his alter ego. Not him.

And you cannot win over a heart that already belongs to you.


	34. Five Sonics

Sonic hummed a random tune as he bit into his breakfast sandwich, his eyes lazily looking over the small cafeteria. There were very few people around, but given the hour it was to be expected—it was six in the morning, after all.

The blue hero was pretty surprised that he himself was up this early as he usually slept until 8 AM, but for some strange reason he didn't feel the need today; which was even more surprising when you took into account that he had talked long into the night with the Other Shadow the day before.

Speaking of the Other Shadow...

Sonic looked on his half-eaten meal, wondering what he was supposed to do now. The Other Shadow had said he didn't want to keep him away from his home-world any longer and, yes, he had spend a really long time away from it. But at the same time Sonic wanted to stay with the Other Shadow to help him find the Other Sonic.

_— and because you want to spend more time with him! _ the little voice at the back of his head decided to return once again, the blue hero wondering which of the beliefs about himself his sub-consciousness (or whatever the voice was) planned to ruin today.

_ I just want to help him,  _ Sonic responded back defensively, the voice chuckling in response.

_Come on, don't lie to yourself! You just want to spend more time around the_ ** _ **nice**_** _Shadow._

_No! It's not like that_ _—_ _!_ Sonic tried to defend himself, but the voice interrupted him again.

_ Hey, I am not judging you! It's to be expected! After all _ _ — _ _ Why would you want to return to your world where Shadow treats you like a trash when you can have a super-nice Shadow instead? _

Sonic didn't respond anyhow, pondering over the voice's words; and a moment later a sad smile crossed his face as he admitted to himself that the voice was right.

"...It's pretty selfish of me, isn't it?" Sonic asked aloud.  _ To put my own selfish wishes before the safety of my friends... _

"If you mean keeping all this food to yourself, then, yes, you are," Knuckles, who had just seated himself across Sonic, said, snatching away another sandwich that still laid untouched on the blue hero's plate.

Sonic blinked surprisedly, not expecting someone to interrupt his half-inner dialog (or was it monologue? He spoke to  ** _himself_ ** ** ,  ** after all...). "Morning, Knuckles."

"Yeah, yeah. Good morning," the echidna responded during his munching on Sonic's sandwich. "By the way, yesterday after you ran off Zonic came and told me that once we are finished with our breakfast he want us to meet him in his office."

Sonic didn't need to be told to know it was about them being send home. "Just a few hours and we'll be home."

"Yeah. I hope that Tails and Amy managed to keep the bat away from the Master Emerald. Because I definitely don't want to deal with her safe again—It was hard to get the Master out of it the first time."

Sonic gave the guardian across him the 'are you serious?' look. Knuckles immediately raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Hey, she caught me off guard, okay?"

"You are really awful at your job, Knuckles," Sonic chuckled, dodging the punch that was sent his way just moment later with ease. The blue hero snickered at the fuming echidna across him. It was nice to experience a 'peaceful' normal moment again.

But considering how his life had been going lately, Sonic was sure hell was about to break lose pretty soon.

And the deafening explosion which shook the whole building just a moment later confirmed this prediction to be true.

~O~

"I said the second building!  _ Second _ ! How on Mobius can you miss that bad?! If your robots possess your aiming skills then it's no wonder Sonic's friends managed to destroy them so easily!" Fiona roared angrily, referring to the attempt to conquer the Other World which ended as an absolute failure.

Even thought at first they had been doing pretty good only with the few hundreds of Nega's enhanced robots, they had been horribly defeated at the end. It was all because of the Other World's Tails, who managed to invent a technology that could counter-attack the chaos-infused armor which was the thing that made the doctors' robot invulnerable to regular attacks. The Other Sonic Heroes along with the GUN then proceeded with destructing every single robot they came along until none remained and she and Dr. Eggman were forced to escape.

All that remained of the once great army was a single gigantic robot in which they had arrived into the No Zone, this one being special as the Master Emerald was embedded in its chest—the Master acting the part of the robot's source of energy. This unusual energy source also gave the robot one big advantage—it could easily create an impenetrable energy shield that made the robot indestructible by outside forces as long as the shield was active.

"It's a distraction! Everyone will rush to help this place and no one will be in the main building to stop us from getting the Emeralds back!" Dr. Eggman said in defensive matter, knowing that his crime-partner was only a step from abandoning him as she had shared this intention with him earlier when she had arrived to his lair from the inter-dimensional base. The doctor had managed to convince her to stay but her patience with him grew even shorter after the unsuccessful attempt on conquering the Other World. And even though he was getting annoyed immensely by her constant nagging, he didn't dare to voice this out as she was his only chance at turning the tables in his favor once again.

"This is the No Zone, the home to the zone cops whose sole purpose is to maintain the stability of multiverse! They will first go after the source of disturbance before dealing with its consequences! They will go after  _ you  _ first!" Fiona shouted, jabbing a finger in the doctor's chest to emphasize his mistake; now there was no way she could sneak into the Zone cops' safe unnoticed and get back the confiscated Emeralds with all the zone cops running around! Well, unless—

"Lift the shield."

"What?! How is that going to help us anyhow?!" Dr. Eggman asked, wondering if he really was the crazy one around here.

"Lift. It." Fiona's tone was commanding and her eyes blazed with fury, looking like an angry tiger ready to pounce; it was obvious she was only a step from snapping.

Dr. Eggman didn't dare to object and instead did as ordered. Once the shield was down Fiona jumped out of the robot, her image morphing into the one of Sonic right before she landed.

"Wait for me here and try not to get defeated!" the criminal screamed before running off to proceed with the newly-established plan.

Dr. Eggman just re-activated the shield in response and then resumed his destruction of the No Zone.

~O~

_ "The West wall of Zone Jail has been destroyed completely! The prisoners are escaping! The men are still unable to breach the intruder's shield! What are the orders?!" _

Zonic scowled at hearing this information, quickening his running pace. He had no idea _who_ even they were facing as he he had been asleep when the attack started and he didn't really have the time to be filled in on what was happening. "For now take-"

BOOM!

"What was that?!" Zonic asked, his tone alarmed as the boom could be heard both over the communicator and even from his location in the sleeping quarters.

_"The intruder has fired another missile! The Control Center has been-!"_ Zector suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence; but resumed a moment later, his tone now more panicked however, _"Zhaos no! The control collars stopped working!"_

_You've got to be kidding me!_ Zonic frowned as he raced around the corner, barely avoiding crashing into another zone cop that was obviously rushing to help his colleagues. "Use F.O.E. inhibitors!"

_ "But—" _

"Do it!" Zonic ordered firmly, knowing that Zector wished to say that doing so without an authorization from Warden was against the rules; but Zonic didn't care. They were under attack from a difficult enemy and the prisoners had their abilities back—the longer they waited, the worse the situation would get.

_ "...Yes, sir." _

~O~

He felt like if a heavy weight was just lifted off his shoulders, feeling energized like never before—so much he believed he would be able to lift a mountain right here right now and then run a whole marathon while holding it above his head.

But...what was this unusual sensation?

Could it be...his powers coming back?

~O~

"Hey, somebody tell me what the hell is happening!" Scourge pounded his fists on the wall of his cell loudly, hoping it would catch the attention of whoever was out there and tell him what was happening.

And just then the door to his cell opened, revealing a blue hedgehog.

Scourge's blue eyes narrowed as he stared up at the newcomer. "Which one are you?"

The blue hedgehog smirked, showing him an arm in a cast. "Make a guess."

Scourge frowned when he recognized the cast. "Why are you here?...And how did you even get  ** _here_ ** ?"

"I'll answer both of these questions...If you answer mine first," the imposter proposed, earning a raised brow from the green criminal, Scourge obviously curious about this offer. "Go on..."

"Were you saying truth back then at the base? About wanting to save Fiona..."

Scourge furrowed his eye-ridges in confusion as he couldn't understand why would the other be interested in something like this. "I was. I want to save Fiona. Once, I'll get out of he—"

"Enough."

Scourge tilted his head in confusion, not understanding what was up with the constant mood changes of his look-alike. "So...I guess it's my turn now?"

The imposter snorted, throwing a stolen spacial bracelet Scourge's way, the green criminal catching it without any trouble. "I came here to get an answer which you provided. And I sneaked in here with a little help from Dr. Eggman."

"Why was my answer so important to you anyway?" Scourge asked as he switched his gravity-field and then walked out of his cell, now standing right before the imposter who was giving him a smirk.

"To me? It was important for  _ you _ ," the imposter answered and stepped closer, a malicious smirk slowly forming on the peach lips. "The answer 'I lied,' would make me leave you here in the Zone Jail but your answer will only earn you  _ this _ ."

Scourge didn't even have a time to think what _this_ was supposed to be as at that very moment a knee collided with his groin.

He fell to to the ground with a shout of pain, his next words hissed through gritted teeth. "What the fuck, dude?!"

However, this exclamation didn't earn Scourge anything and instead he received the hardest slap to a face he ever got, his green spiky head turning to side involuntarily in the process. The green villain blinked in confusion, unwilling to believe that he had just been slapped. However, once he got over his momentary shock he turned to the imposter, sending a hard glare the other's way. "What's the big deal?!"

The imposter smirked and bent down to be at the same eye-level with the green hedgehog. "The deal is, babe—" The illusion disappeared, Scourge's eyes growing wide at the sight of his girlfriend standing before him. "—that you left me at the hands of Suppression Squad. So, be happy you'll get away just with this."

Scourge was getting more and more confused with each passed second. "How did you...?"

Fiona placed her finger on her boyfriend's lips to silence him. "A long story. I'll tell you later. Now get up! We need to get out of here before anyone notices us..."

The female fox dragged the green criminal back to his feet, Scourge hissing in the process as his crotch was still in horrible pain. Fiona had one hell of kick he had to admit—and he also had to admit that he deserved it...and even hundred more for what he did, but for some reason Fiona didn't seem like she wanted to beat him anymore.

Which was very suspicious given the fact she should hate him with all her heart for what he did.

But instead she was helping him.

Seriously, what the fuck?

"Why on Moebius are you helping me?" Scourge asked in confusion, unable to think of a reason why Fiona would want to help him after what he had made her go through.

"Somebody once told me I should give people a second chance," Fiona responded, giving the other a rather long look, Scourge soon catching on who this _somebody_ was.

"You remember how your own second chance went, right?"

"Of course, dear... It lead me right into your arms," Fiona replied, leaning onto Scourge's chest. "But if you ever betray me again..." The innocent smile that was previously on her face fell and was replaced by hard stare. "...you can say 'bye' to your _family jewels_."

Any other man would probably be scared for his 'jewels' after hearing such threat—and probably also try to leave the scene as fast as possible—but Scourge wasn't any other man. Instead of running away he wrapped his arms around Fiona, bringing her even closer. "Oh, babe, you have no idea how much I missed this side of yours!"

Then he leaned forward, planning to kiss the fox before him; however, Fiona put a finger on his lips and made a step back, breaking his embrace and effectively preventing the other from kissing her. "Leave that for later, Scourge. We need to get out of here before anybody notices us."

Scourge would have probably pouted if he didn't consider it unmanly. "Not even a little one?"

"No. I'm still angry with you."

The green criminal snorted and his usual cocky smirk returned to his face. "I guess it serves me right!" He shrugged his shoulders. "So—What's the plan?"

Fiona smirked, activating her masking device, the illusion of Sonic concealing her true appearance from the eyes of everybody once again. "Follow me."

~O~

"What do you mean they are not there?!" Zonic screamed over his communicator, not wanting to believe Zector's words about F.O.E. inhibitors disappearing without trace. Green eyes moved back to the chaos that was unfolding behind his back. Dr. Eggman, in his gigantic robot, was destroying everything in sight and the other zone cops, who were desperately trying to find a way how to get through the robot's energy shield—all the while trying to avoid the attacks of the escaped vengeful prisoners.

_ "Exactly what I'm saying! They're just  _ ** _**gone** _ ** _!" _

"Great. Just great," Zonic hissed, making a roll to escape the missile that was send his way, the wall behind which he had taken cover bursting into pieces just a moment later.

_ "How shall we proceeded now, boss?" _

Zonic was already taking a breath to answer, but then there was suddenly a hand tapping his shoulder, the head zone cop turning around in alarm.

But instead of the sight of a prisoner he had expected, he was met with the sight of Sonic and Knuckles, Zonic realizing they must have been drawn there by the sound of battle.

"You seem to be kind of struggling with that big guy over there, mind if we take it?" Sonic's tone was light-hearted, the blue hero obviously looking forward to a fight after a week of peace.

Zonic snorted at his look-alike's eagerness to fight as he gestured dismissively to the robot. "It's all _yours_."

At the very moment Zonic finished his sentence, the duo rushed past him, heading for the gigantic robot. The hedgehog zone cop stared after them for a few seconds, noting how they tried to lure the robot away from the fighting crowd. But then Zonic sharply turned around and broke into a run, heading to find Zector so they could come up with a plan how to solve their current crisis.

~O~

The Other Sonic had no idea what he was doing.

He knew what he was supposed to do. Run as fast and as far as he could. No one would be able to catch him now when the control collar stopped working, his incredible speed free to use once again.

Moreover, the fact that one of the walls of his cell had literally been blasted off just minutes ago should have been enough of sign that Universe was trying to make it as easy as possible for him to escape.

But there was also this feeling in his gut that insisted that wasn't the right thing to do at the moment—that there was something different that he should be doing.

Even though it was going against all common sense, he decided to listen to his intuition, because so far it was only helpful. Chaos, it even saved his life multiple times!

But he really wondered why his intuition lead him to what, judging by all the shelves that were around him, seemed to be some kind of a storage area.

"So—" The Other Sonic could feel his heart rate quicken rapidly at unexpectedly hearing a voice, the possibility of him getting caught by some wandering zone cop making his insides twist in dread. The masked hero immediately hid behind one of the shelves, his ears twisting in all directions to pinpoint the speaker. "—What's the plan exactly?"

"Firstly, we'll break into this safe." The Other Sonic frowned in confusion. Were there two people or one? The voices sounded absolutely the same and also...oddly familiar. "Secondly, you'll turn super with all the Emeralds that are there and then teleport us out of here."

_Emeralds? Like Chaos Emeralds?! I could teleport myself home?!_ the Other Sonic cheered internally at the possibility, peeking from behind the shelf in hope of spotting the safe which the two voices were speaking about.

"What about Dr. Egghead?"

"What about him?"

The Other Sonic inched closer.

"I believe you have an alliance with him."

"That idiot failed way too many times for me to trust him not to mess up this one too."

The Other Sonic peeked out from his new hiding spot, shocked to see Scourge and what to him seemed to be another version of himself with an unconscious zone cop by their feet.  _ Well, that explains the voices sounding familiar... _

Scourge chuckled. "I prefer only two of us anyway! So, did you find the key? Because there is no way how I'm cutting through this metal—my quills had been blunted like the last time. Argh."

"Yes, here it is," the blue look-alike replied with a smirk as he took out a plastic key-card out of the belt pocket of the unconscious zone cop.

Scourge mirrored the other's expression. "Then let's open this baby up right now!" Scourge commented as his crime-partner stepped to the locked door with the key-card in hand. The scanner beeped loudly as the key-card slid through, the safe-door starting to open right after.

Once the door was fully opened, Scourge slightly bowed, gesturing with his hand. "Ladies first."

The blue hedgehog sighed exasperatedly before entering the safe, Scourge following right after. The Other Sonic moved even closer to keep an eye on the pair, wondering for a moment what Scourge's remark was supposed to mean. It could be just teasing, but he had a feeling there was something behind it...

But his train of thoughts was cut off sharply at the very moment he spotted the hundreds of Chaos Emeralds that were stored inside the safe.

_ This is my chance! _

Without a second thought, the Other Sonic leapt out of his hiding spot, rushing past the surprised duo to a pedestal, which held one set of Chaos Emerald, his hand automatically reaching out for those powerful gems.

His only way home.

~O~

Shadow scowled as he raced down the hallway, watching as people ran past him in panic, yelling at each other about having to escape the building before it collapsed while giving him a confused looks when they passed him—which wasn't odd as, instead of running away, he was actually heading deeper into the complex.

Which was a very unwise idea as the fact that the building was slowly falling apart could be seen even from the inside, the possibility of him getting crushed in the next moment increasing with each passed second.

You could ask 'Why isn't he running away as the rest then?' The reason was simple—He had sensed a big chaos wave wash over him just a few minutes ago, and whatever or whoever was the source of it was now giving a signal of such magnitude as if somebody in the area was in a super from. And after taking into consideration that zone cops should have all the Chaos Emeralds under a lock, this definitely wasn't something that could be left un-investigated.

He followed his inner chaos radar and soon arrived in what seemed to be the storage area, the signal now getting stronger and easier to read, making him realize that there were actually  _t_ _ wo  _ signals—though they were barely distinguishable.

What specifically was the source of those signals he learned just a moment later as their producers flew into the view, both of their bodies glowing brightly—one purple and one golden.

It was easy to identify the purple one—Scourge's transformation was unmistakable. However, when it came to Scourge's opponent, Shadow wasn't so sure. It took him a moment to recognize the glowing golden fox as the prisoner whom he had seen being lead to the solitary confinement the day prior.

There were various questions that the sight evoked in Shadow's brain. How did these two get out of their cells? How did they get to the Chaos Emeralds? Why were they even fighting? Why—

Most of these questions shared one answer—who just decided to arrive at the scene. "Scourge, stop messing around and finish this already! It's only matter of time till the zone cops find a way how to break through the doctor's shield!"

"Stop commanding me, woman!" Scourge roared as he threw a small energy ball at his opponent, who stuck a tongue out in a mocking manner before teleporting out of the way, causing the attack to miss. "What about doing something productive?!" Another miss. "For example, telling me who the fuck is this when it's not you?!" Scourge snapped back as yet another of his attack failed to meet its target.

_ Not you?  _ Shadow frowned as he turned to stare at the blue hedgehog as his brain processed the information and then made the connection that the blue hedgehog wasn't another random version of Sonic but the awful imposter that had been causing trouble both in his and the Other Shadow's world.

Though Shadow had to admit that the imposter mastered Sonic's ability on making his life more complicated—as the imposter was supposed to work with Dr. Eggman, Scourge was supposed to be against Doctor—and yet the two were working together as it seemed. Shadow honestly had no idea what he was supposed to do at the moment.

But this question was answered a moment later when Scourge finally noticed he was there.

"Oh, Stripes! I haven't expected you to be here!" The purple criminal was grinning widely, the expression making Shadow's inner alarm go off.

It seemed running was on the schedule.

Or so Shadow thought before the golden fox, without any warning, brutally smashed Scourge into the wall, her previous playfulness disappearing into non-existence and instead being replaced by a cold-blooded seriousness.

Shadow couldn't help but stare in shock at the show of violence that followed—Scourge, of course, got pissed on such a harsh treatment of his person and immediately counter-attacked. However, the fox blocked the attack with ease, almost as if she knew what was Scourge about to do. And then the two started to attack each other with such speed that even Shadow wasn't able to follow what was happening—the only thing he was sure about was that both of them would have been already a mush of blood and bones if they weren't protected by their super forms.

And all it took to start this horrible fight was Scourge giving him a malevolent glare.

It was really strange, the fox reacted almost as if Scourge dared to threaten her dear friend—and not him, a total stranger. Of course, she could have a strong emotional connection to another of his alter-egos and in the heat of the moment she had forgotten that he wasn't her Shadow—

_CRASH!_

Shadow stared in confusion at the giant hole in the wall, pretty sure it wasn't there just a moment ago and wondering if its sudden appearance was somehow connected to the fact that Scourge was currently nowhere in sight. The golden fox stared for a moment at something outside with arms out-stretched in a way as if she had just thrown something—Shadow guessed Scourge—and just a moment later she flew through the hole as well—most likely to continue the fight with Scourge outside, leaving Shadow and the imposter behind.

Which gave Shadow an incredible opportunity.

Before Fiona could even blink, she was already held from behind by Shadow, the ebony hedgehog's forearm pressed to the other's windpipe, the type of hold and her injured arm making it impossible for her to escape.

And they both knew it.

Shadow raised his free hand, an orb of crimson energy slowly forming above his palm.

"What do you say about staring where we had left off?"

~O~

"We really need to switch it off somehow! Can't you sing it a lullaby or something?!" Sonic shouted from his side of battlefield at his echidna friend while trying to avoid being hit by the missiles that had been fired at him by Dr. Eggman.

Knuckles immediately replied with an irritated growl, "That's not how Master Emerald works!"

"And how should I know?! You haven't really told me anything about how M.E. works!" Sonic yelled back as he somersaulted backwards, the stunt allowing him to dodge the incoming attack with ease.

Knuckles growled. "Of course, I haven't! Do you know how much trouble it could cause if the information got into Dr. Eggman's hands?!"

Sonic sent his friend another of his 'are you serious' look at the remark. Dr. Eggman stopped trying to target Sonic for a moment to mirror his arch-enemy's expression as neither he could believe what kind of nonsense just left Knuckles' mouth. The blue hero gestured to the doctor's robot. "You know, Knux, I don't think we really have to worry about that now."

It took Knuckles a moment to connect the dots. "...Oh."

"Anyway—" Sonic dodged the robot's flying arm as Dr. Eggman had resumed with the attack. "—Is there a way how to make the M.E. stop working?!"

"Well," Knuckles started, "there's one way—"

The rest of the echidna's idea was left unheard as he had to turn all his focus on avoiding a golden body that was thrown his way by what at the moment could be seen only as a purple dot high in the sky.

Which Sonic identified as Scourge just a moment later. "Hey, isn't that Scourge in a super form?!"

"Ugh, sooo, you two know each other?" Sonic's voice sounded again, slightly startling the blue hero as he hadn't expected his own voice to sound anytime soon as Scourge was still high in the sky.

The blue hero turned to the other super Mobian, the fox slowly getting up again, Sonic realizing after moment that it had to be his alter-ego that he had met at the infirmary.

(The alter-ego whom he unintentionally completely forgot thanks to the 'trying to stop the Other Shadow from killing Dr. Nega' moment.)

(Oops.)

Though Sonic was sure he remembered his alter-ego having more feminine voice the last time they met each other. "Hey, what's up with the voice?"

"Voice?" the Other Sonic asked in confusion, taking a moment to realize that he no longer had a female voice. "My voice! It's back!"

Sonic probably would have responded with something along the lines of 'That's great!' but he was too busy staring at the flashing form of his alter-ego, the masked hero's true image hidden underneath the illusion flickering into and out of existence repeatedly. "Err, it seems your 'mask' is breaking."

The Other Sonic blinked in confusion and then looked onto his body, noticing how his body image kept on changing its shape from feminine to masculine and then back again in a never-ending cycle. The Other Sonic couldn't stop a big smile from forming on his face. "Scourge must have somehow—!"

"Watch out!" Sonic interrupted his alter-ego in an alarmed tone as he jumped out of the way of a ricocheted missile. However, the Other Sonic wasn't able to escape in time and so he was send flying backwards into the building.

Luckily, for him he was still in a super form, so he wouldn't have to deal with anything beside a headache.

The blue hero tried to pin-point his other self amongst the rumble, but any concern he might felt for his alter-ego was immediately replaced by alarm when he heard Scourge's voice sound from behind him. "Hey! That's my opponent you stupid chunk of metal!"

Sonic swiftly turned around, watching as Scourge flew towards the doctor probably planning to destroy his newest toy in order to teach him a lesson to not intervene into his fights, unaware that there was an energy field protecting the giant robot.

So, you can probably imagine everyone's surprise when, instead of crashing hard into the shield, Scourge flew right through and then kicked the robot with such force it was sent flying into the nearest building, the Master Emerald in the robot's chest shattering upon the impact and thus causing the force field to collapse; though that didn't matter anymore as the robot seemed to be out of working order altogether.

"Well...I guess that works too," Sonic commented, earning himself a strange look from Knuckles, who was standing just a few yards away at the moment.

"Hey, I was the one supposed to knock you out!" Scourge's voice sounded from the direction in which the Other Sonic had been thrown by the missile, Sonic immediately turning around in alarm and being met with sight of the unconscious Other Sonic being held by the collar of his prison uniform by the still-Super Scourge. The unconscious Mobian had already de-transformed and now seemed to be stuck in Fiona's form again. "This is _so_ not fair!"

Scourge let go of the orange cloth, letting the limp body fall to the ground as he turned around pointing at Sonic. "You and me still have some unfinished business!"

The super hedgehog teleported in front of his look-alike and reached for the blue hero's throat, Sonic not having enough time to—

"And it will stay unfinished if you don't want something to happen to her!"

Everybody immediately turned to stare to from where the voice sounded the giant hole in the wall of the building from which the super duo had emerged. The owner of the voice was Shadow, who still had his arm wrapped around Fiona's neck. However, this time, the criminal was in her true form and had an apathetic look in her eyes, seemingly not concerned with the fact that there was a gun pressed to her temple.

Scourge scowled at the impassive stare of his girlfriend. It seemed so  _ wrong _ . "What did you do to her?!"

"Only made her speak," Shadow responded, sneering at the purple hedgehog. "Now de-transform—or my finger might slip."

Scourge clenched his fists in anger, knowing well enough that Shadow wouldn't hesitate to carry out his threat.

"Well?" Shadow raised an eye-ridge questioningly at Scourge's silence.

Scourge unclenched his fist, giving the ebony agent an impassive stare—right before making a move that would seal Fiona's fate.


	35. Farewell

"...Fine!" The purple glow disappeared from Scourge's body, the hedgehog giving up his invincible state. "Happy?! Now hand her over!"

"Who said anything about handing her over?" The ebony agent raised his eye-ridge questioningly, a smug smirk finding its way to his face—both of these gestures immediately sending Scourge's blood boiling.

The green hedgehog lunged forward, planning to get his girlfriend from Shadow's hold by force. "You mother—!"

The sound of gunshot echoed across the once-battlefield.

And Scourge fell to the ground unmoving.

...With a tranquilizer shot sticking out from his behind.

"Huh? Where did that come from?" Sonic asked in a mild confusion, turning his head around as he tried to pin point the person that had shot Scourge, Knuckles doing the same.

However, Shadow was able to immediately zero in on the shooter. "Took you long enough."

"Well, somebody needed to catch all the prisoners that were set free because of your rampaging," the shooter replied as he made a step out of his hiding spot so he could be fully seen by the others. The Other Shadow frowned as he rested the tranquilizer gun on his shoulder. "Two hundred forty-five escaped prisoners and I had to shot half of them." The ebony agent walked over to the unconscious criminal, forcing the limp body to roll over with his foot to check Scourge was truly out cold. Once he confirmed this he slung the green hedgehog over his shoulder, planning to take the criminal to the nearest zone cop so he could be returned back to his cell—well, if it still was intact. "Shooting on a moving target apparently isn't a strength of many zone cops."

The Other Shadow raised his eyes from the ground to look at Fiona, who still had the apathetic look on her face, the ebony agent wondering for a moment why she looked like that. But then he sensed the left-over energy of the chaos technique which had been used on her. Crimson eyes narrowed slightly as they met their mirror image. " _ Who  _ is this girl?"

"Somebody whom Zonic has to see right now," Shadow responded, putting away the no longer necessary gun. "Do you know where he is?"

The Other Shadow frowned, not liking the sketchy answer of his alter-ego. However, he knew himself good enough to know Shadow surely had a good reason to not tell him—this of course piqued his curiosity even more, but he knew Shadow wouldn't tell him no matter how much he would ask. "He was in the weapon vault the last time I've seen him, however, I doubt he's still there."

"Hmph, thanks anyway," Shadow said before he picked up the still unresponsive fox into his arms and raced away to find the hedgehog zone cop.

The Other Shadow frowned as he looked around the battlefield. He could see Knuckles carrying Dr. Eggman away—the man had been knocked-out when Scourge kicked his robot into the building—but Sonic was nowhere to be seen.

The ebony hedgehog sighed as he rearranged the green hedgehog on his shoulder and then set off to deliver his own criminal to the zone police.

~O~

It took Shadow about ten minutes to find Zonic, who, surprisingly, was talking with Sonic. The blue blur was holding a person that appeared to be an identical twin of Fiona Fox. But Shadow knew how far from truth this was.

But this strange sight got him thinking.  _ Why would faker carry him all they way here? Does he know about the swap? _

The ebony agent strained his ears to listen on the conversation, deciding to not interfere for now.

"—That is not possible," Zonic stated in a tone of someone who was one hundred percent sure that the person to whom they were speaking was the one wrong here.

"Zonic, just—"

"Don't make me repeat myself, Sonic!" the head zone cop was now hissing, "It's **_not_** possible! We check everyone's zone address right before we send them into the Zone Jail exactly for these reasons—it's impossible for a swap to happen!"

"And yet it happened!" the blue hero responded, not letting himself get affected anyhow by Zonic's tone as he knew the head zone cop was just stressed from the difficult morning. "I swear, Zonic! He's innocent, he even fought on our side! I've seen his true form! Just do the test again, please!"

Shadow was sure now.  _ He knows.  _ "He's telling the truth."

Both blue hedgehogs turned to him in surprise. Zonic's scowl just deepened while Sonic raised an questioning eye-ridge on his sudden appearance. "Shadow?"

"The swap happened not long after you've imprisoned the real Fiona Fox—with the help of Dr. Nega she escaped and the replaced herself with that Sonic so you wouldn't notice she was missing," Shadow explained, gesturing to the still unconscious masked hero with his head as his arms were still occupied with holding the real Fiona. "She told me so herself."

"Wait a minute," Zonic walked past his alter-ego to the ebony agent. "So the girl that you are holding—"

"—Is the real Fiona Fox," Shadow finished for him and then watched as the color started to slowly leave Zonic's face, the head zone cop obviously mortified that something like this had happened under his watch.

The head zone cop took a deep breath to calm himself down before speaking up in an emotionless manner once more, switching on his business side to deal with this. "Even though I know neither of you really has a reason to lie to me, I still need some evidence to confirm your claims. Please, take both of them to the laboratory—hopefully, it hasn't been damaged—and ask the staff to run the usual zone address test on their blood. I'll come in half an hour for the results."

"Sure thing, Zonic!" Sonic replied as he set off for the laboratory, Shadow silently trailing after him.

~O~

Zonic continued to stare at the paper in his hands in disbelief. "How could this happen...?"  _ I should have noticed something was off! Nobody was has ever been so desperate to try to escape 38 times!  _ Zonic's curled his free hand into a fist, feeling angry at himself; he was a zone cop, his job was to punish the villains and protect the innocent people!

Not the other way around...

"Don't let it bring you down, Zonic! Mistakes happen all the time! But we caught this one so we can fix it!" Sonic said, hoping it would cheer up the dispirited zone cop at least a little.

"An  _ innocent  _ person has been imprisoned for months, Sonic! On my watch! How am I supposed to stop thinking about something like that?!" Zonic shouted, his inner voice insisting it was all his fault because he hadn't been observant enough.

Sonic opened his mouth to speak but before any word could leave his mouth Shadow was already talking, this being the ebony's agent first time to speak since Zonic had arrived. "Brooding over things is pointless, you should try to make things right, instead of wasting energy on self-blaming."

"Whoa, Shads, that was...really deep," the blue hero said, earning himself a glare from the dark hedgehog with this comment.

Zonic unclenched his fist. "...You're right, I should make things right—I will...I will send him home right once he'll wake up," Zonic decided as he sat down, looking over to the door behind which the Other Sonic was sleeping at the moment—the blue hero had yet to wake up after the small operation that he had to undergo in order to get the microchip—which made him look like Fiona for the last few months—out of his body.

The head zone cop sighed as he read over the coordinates printed on the paper again to ensure they would stick in his memory—he needed to correct the unintentional wrongdoing, even if it was just by sending the hero home.

Zonic read over the coordinates one more time, suddenly realizing he had already seen these exact coordinates somewhere. Blue eye-ridges furrowed in deep thought as he tried to remember where it was.

_No way!_ Zonic sharply stood up, slightly surprising the other two hedgehogs. However, the head zone cop didn't plan to explain his behavior to those two as there were much more important things he needed to pay his attention to.

With a quick, "Excuse me for a moment," he left the scene, planning to find out if he was right or mistaken.

~O~

Blue eye-lids slowly opened, revealing the green orbs underneath them. The Other Sonic blinked slowly, slightly confused as he hadn't remembered going to sleep. The last thing he remembered was fighting Scourge—

The blue hero sharply sat up in alarm at the idea that Scourge might still be nearby, a jolt of pain shooting through his side at the movement. The Other Sonic hissed, immediately looking over to his side which was covered in bandages—

Breath hitched in the Other Sonic's throat as he realized his fur was back to its original colors and that he no longer had the orange prison uniform. Green eyes traveled across the room, noticing its hospital-like whiteness and obvious lack of murderous purple hedgehogs.

The blue hero's heart slowly started to decrease its pace as its owner realized he wasn't in danger anymore; though he was still little nervous because he had no idea what exactly had happened when he was unconscious.

The Other Sonic grimaced slightly when his bare feet touched the cold ground, the sensation slightly uncomfortable. He slowly got up from the bed and started searching the room for some footwear. However, even two minutes later he still had nothing.

_ Where am I anyway?  _ he wondered as he didn't recognize the room. It surely wasn't any part of the Zone Jail; he was very familiar with every single part of its infirmary as he had ended there numerous times because of his escape attempts.

_ I have no chains on me, there are no guards, I look normal again...Maybe, I just got into some fight and dreamed the whole prison thing... _

With this thought the Other Sonic opened the only door leading from the room, curious if what he was gonna find at the other side wouldconfirm or deny his theory.

He surely didn't expect  _ himself  _ to be sitting there.

~O~

"Hey, there! Great to see you're back on your feet so soon!" Sonic grinned widely, practically jumping out of his seat to greet his alter-ego. Though the Other Sonic didn't look very happy to see him—or maybe he was just confused about why he was here in the first place.

Sonic slung his arm over his look-alike's shoulder, his grin widening even more. "Which one do you want to hear first? The good news or the better news?"

The Other Sonic frowned slightly, obviously unsure what to make of his double's enthusiasm. "Er...the good news?"

"You are officially a free man once again!" Sonic announced excitedly and gestured to Shadow, who was just silently observing the blue duo. "You can thank for that Shadow over here! He caught the real Fiona!"

The Other Sonic opened his mouth to speak, but before he could even utter one word, Shadow was already speaking, "Take that as a return of favor when you stopped Scourge from tearing me to shreds."

The Other Sonic chuckled at this. It reminded him of a certain hedgehog... "Still...thank you."

Shadow just grunted in response.

The Other Sonic waited a few seconds and when it didn't seem like he would get more words from the ebony hedgehog, the Other Sonic turned his attention back to his alter-ego. "What are those other news?"

Sonic looked slightly confused for a second before he remembered what they had been speaking about before. "Oh, yes! You are being send home today!"

A mix of emotions flashed across the Other Sonic's face before a look of hope settled there. "R-really?"

Sonic would have probably smiled even more if it was physically possible. "Yeah. Zonic said he'll send you home as soon as you wake up. Though it seems we'll have to find him, he suddenly run off without—" Before Sonic could even finish his speech, he was enveloped in a tight hug that he hadn't expected.

The Other Sonic was holding on him as if his life depended on it, slightly stuttering over his words as he tried to keep himself from crying in happiness. "T-thank you, thank you so much."

Sonic laughed nervously. He couldn't imagine how great it must be to hear such news after four months of being locked up somewhere. "I don't you should be hugging me, it was mostly Shadow's work, really."

The Other Sonic mumbled something, Sonic's ears not able to pick it up. "Sorry, I haven't quite caught that."

The Other Sonic chuckled as he let go of his double, a smirk on his face. "He would punch me before I even had the chance."

Sonic mirrored the expression. "Yeah, Shadow doesn't really like physical conta—Wait a minute, where did he go?"

Both hedgehogs looked around the hallway, but neither of them could spot even a glimpse of the ebony agent—instead there was a completely different person approaching. Sonic immediately waved at the newcomer. "Hey, Zector! Good to see you unharmed! What a crazy morning, right?"

The crocodile zone cop laughed once he reached them. "Believe it or not. We had worse," golden eyes turned from the cobalt hero to the other blue hedgehog, their reptile owner confused for a moment why there were two Sonics. "Oh! You must be that another Sonic! Sorry for the whole, er, imprisoning you thing! This kind of stuff hasn't really happened to us before—!" Zector was no babbling and making wild gestures, the sight making the Other Sonic snort in amusement. At least Vector was the same everywhere.

"It's alright, don't beat yourself over it."

"...Uh, that's not really the reaction I expected..." Zector said, clearly surprised; however, he recovered just a moment later. "Anyway, Zonic has send me for you two—seems  _ both  _ of you are being send home!"

To this day, Zector still doesn't understand why only one of Sonics looked happy upon hearing these news.

~O~

"So, what will be the first thing you'll do when you return home?" Sonic asked, wanting to pass the time with a conversation—Zonic had given Zector the order that all non-No-Zoners were to be send home all at once and Zector still had to find both Shadows and Knuckles.

"I guess, I'll go to see my friends—and then maybe get some new pair of shoes," the Other Sonic joked, swinging his still shoe-less feet. "And you?"

"Probably the same, well, sans the shoe part," Sonic responded, grinning, "Who will you visit first?"

At this the bare-footed hero had to think for a moment. "Perhaps Shadow or Tails..."

"Hmm? Shadow first? What an unexpected choice," Sonic commented, "I mean I don't know what you Shadow is like, but mine pretty much hates my guts."

"Mine used to be like that too until a year ago."

"Oh, really what changed?"

"We..." the other blue hero paused for a moment, looking down on his toes as he deeply pondered over his answer, "...started dating."

This information set off an alarm in Sonic's head. _No, that can't be...the chances of that happening are like bazillion to none!_ "Ehm, how long have you been stuck in this jail?"

"Huh?" The Other Sonic raised his eye-ridge, slightly puzzled by the sudden change of topic. "About four months. Why are you asking?"

Sonic's eyes widened. _No way!_ "Well—"

"Hmm, I didn't know there was somebody beside us."

Both blue hedgehogs turned their attention towards the new voice, which belonged to the very familiar Ultimate Life form. The ebony agent gave them an a contemplative look before moving to the other side of the room to sit there.

_ He's the Other one. _ _.._ Sonic judged by the ebony hedgehog's remark. Green eyes jumped from the hedgehog sitting next to him to the one across him repeatedly. He still wasn't sure if these two truly were from the same world even though all the clues pointed in this direction. But Sonic didn't want to act upon unconfirmed information and possibly bring even more suffering to the two and so he decided to keep his mouth shut—because if they truly were from the same world, they would end up meeting each other there, right? They would find each other even without his help...

It took only few minutes for Knuckles and Shadow to arrive, surprisingly, accompanied by Zonic, who upon entering the room looked all of them over, his gaze visibly lingering at the Other Sonic and Other Shadow longer than on anybody else. Sonic didn't need more confirmation that his theory was right, but he still decided that letting Zonic reveal this information would be better.

Zonic walked over to the blue duo, his green eyes visibly fixated on the Other Sonic, who was now looking curiously at his alter-ego as despite being in the Zone Jail for so long he hadn't really had the chance too meet Zonic yet because the head zone cop was always running around solving problems.

"Please, let me introduce myself. I am Zonic, the head zone cop of the zone police. I would like to formally apologize to you for falsely imprisoning you. I am also sorry to say that we cannot offer no other compensation beside an assistance with helping you return back to your home-world and a promise that the zone police will do everything in its power that a case like yours won't happen again."

It was obvious that Zonic wasn't apologizing solely out of a duty but because he truly felt like he had wronged the blue hero. The Other Sonic smiled at this.

"I think that'll be enough. I don't really wish for anything else than to finally return home."

"Very well, then. Could you walk over to the portal number 2 then, please?" Zonic gestured to the aforementioned piece of technology, the Other Sonic immediately doing as he was asked. Sonic blinked in slight surprise at the evident lack of any mention of the Other Shadow and the Other Sonic being from the same world in Zonic's speech. Maybe they really weren't from the same world?

"Sonic, can you, please, join Shadow and Knuckles?" Zonic's voice drew the blue hero back from his thoughts, making Sonic immediately jumped out of his seat. Sonic then walked over to the portal no.1, wondering how deep in thought he must have been that he hadn't noticed the aforementioned duo walk over there.

Green eyes turned to look back at the Other Shadow, who was already heading for the portal number 3, despite the fact that Zonic hadn't given him any instruction yet, as he assumed it would be the one he would be using. However, Zonic's voice, which sounded just a moment later, confirmed this to be a wrong assumption, "Shadow, could you please join Sonic at portal number two? You two are headed for the same world."

It took exactly two seconds for everybody's brains to realize the implication of Zonic's words.

~O~

But neither of the Other-worlders believed they have heard right. "Did you just say—?"

"That you two are from the same world?" Zonic finished the question with a small smile on his face. "Yes, I said exactly that."

Slowly the two hedgehogs turned their gaze from Zonic to each other and just stared, neither of the two making a move to get closer as both were having trouble believing that this was really happening.

However, only a few seconds later the Other Shadow managed to overcome his initial shock and finally walk over to his partner. Not even a second later the Other Sonic found himself being hugged by his ebony lover, the blue hero eagerly returning the embrace.

"I thought I'll never see you again..." It was a mere whisper but it was still loud enough for the Other Sonic's ears to catch, tears accumulating in the corner of his green eyes as the Other Shadow's soft words and warm embrace felt exactly like what he remembered the _home_ to be.

"M-me too," the Other Sonic's voice broke in the middle of his short sentence as his mind kept screaming only one thing,  _ Home, home, I am home! _

"Please, don't let this be a dream..." the dark agent mumbled, earning himself a snort of amusement from his blue and peach lover, who then pulled away slightly so their eyes could meet.

"If it is, then I never want to wake up," the Other Sonic replied, his green eyes sparkling with happiness and looking much more alive than a few minutes ago while his lips were stretched in a wide toothy smile.

The Other Shadow leaned slightly forward, mumbling short "Me neither," before closing the gap between them and connecting their lips in a soft loving kiss.

This emotional moment would have probably continued on much longer if it wasn't for Knuckles suddenly speaking up, "Why can't I look away?!"

The Other-worlders separated and turned to the red echidna who have reminded them that were actually other people in the room beside them. The Other Sonic's cheeks turned slightly pink in embarrassment, the color change of his face accompanied by a nervous laugh. The Other Shadow just looked irritated at being interrupted like this.

"Maybe because you want to do the same with Rouge?" Sonic answered jokingly Knuckles' question and then bent down to avoid the fist that was send his way by the echidna.

"I don't want to do anything with that  ** bat ** !"

"Suuure..." Sonic replied in a tone that clearly said that he didn't believe him that all.

"I'm serious!"

"You're just in denial, Knux."

"I'm not—"

"Can we get back to the matter at hand, please?"

All people turned to Zonic, who was now standing at the control panel that operated the portals, the hedgehog zone cop clearly waiting for all of them to calm down.

Knuckles send one last glare Sonic's way before hissing, "Sure."

"Thank you," Zonic said and then clicked few buttons on the panel. Just a moment later, a multi-colored vortex formed inside each portal. "Both portals will close in five minutes, so if you have anything to say to each other, please, do it quickly."

"Well, I guess this is goodbye," Sonic commented turning to the other-worldy pair.

The Other Shadow nodded. "Seems so."

Sonic chuckled. "Well, thanks for the help and you," Sonic was now talking to his alter-ego, "be nice to him. He's gone through a lot since you were away."

"I will, don't worry," the Other Sonic answered, deciding to leave the question how did his alter-ego know his lover for later—Shadow surely would explain it to him. "Take care."

"I don't think I'll need to when there's no Dr. Eggman around," Sonic joked, referring to the fact that the zone police had decided to sentence the doctor to one year in the Zone Jail for attacking the No Zone. Sonic was actually looking forward to this Eggman-less vacation.

And like this they parted, all of them leaving the No Zone through they respective portals.

~O~

After stepping out of the portal the trio of heroes found themselves at an edge of a forest. Shadow guessed they were somewhere near the Station Square as a silhouette of the aforementioned city could be seen at the horizon.

"Well, that was one crazy adventure, don't you think?" Sonic commented, hoping to strike conversation with either of the two males. However, the only answer Sonic got was 'Indeed' from him as Knuckles was too busy with reading something at a cell-phone that he had taken out of his shoe just a moment ago.

A moment later the guardian started cursing, the words 'bat' and 'emerald' being the only thing that Shadow's ears were able to catch. It wasn't hard to figure out that Rouge must have stolen the Master Emerald again. The fact that echidna then said a quick goodbye and set off, all the while mumbling about strangling a certain bat, convinced Shadow that he was right. He could hear Sonic silently laugh at this, Shadow himself smirking a little as apart from the oblivious echidna both of them were aware that Rouge had other motives besides wanting to expand her collection of gems.

Sonic stared after the slowly retreating form of his red friend for a long time, before he suddenly turned to him with a questioning look on his face. "So...Wanna race?"

Shadow couldn't stop himself from sighing in the 'This again?' manner. "I have to report back to the GUN about what happened with Doctor and I'm sure there's a number of people to which you should show you're alive."

Shadow noticed how blue ears drooped ever so slightly, a sign that Sonic was unhappy about his answer. However, the blue hero didn't let it show at his face, the trademark grin still planted on the blue hero's face. "Well, I guess we'll have to leave it for later then." Sonic turned to look at the city, most likely planning which of his friends he would visit first.

_ "—I see a short happy life a better alternative to living a long miserable life—" _

A memory of the happy couple, which he had seen just minutes ago, flashed through Shadow's mind.

_ "—But if you prefer the latter..." _

It was at that moment that Shadow made a decision.

"Sonic?"

He didn't wish to push people away anymore.

"Yes?" Sonic turned to him, a curious look on his face.

He didn't wish to push  ** Sonic  ** away anymore.

"Let's race to the city."

And maybe one day...

Peach mouth stretched into a wide grin. "You're on!"

He'll get his chance.

** **The End** **


End file.
